August 11th, 2019

August 13, 2019

August 11th, 2019

We slept in and finally got moving at 9:00. After a breakfast of fruits, oatmeal and coffee we quickly broke camp and hit the road. Our plan was to do the remainder of the Yellowstone figure eight.

Starting at Bridge Bay campground we headed North towards Canyon Village and the lower and upper falls. First we stopped at LeHardys Rapids and Mud Volcano to observe the unique features. At Mud Volcano we stopped and had a small snack and were treated to a buffalo roaming through the parking lot. A park ranger yelled at us and others to clear out of it's way as it was apparently angry but I wasn't too worried with all the vehicles to hide behind.

Once we made it to Upper falls we took a few pictures. Lower falls was more breathtaking and I think the view from Artists Point was my favorite of all of Yellowstone. I realized we had a lot of distance to cover still so we didn't dally too long and headed North.

Our next stop was at Tower Fall where we bought a few groceries and chatted with an activist group that had setup a tent advocating for putting Buffalo on the endangered species list. We had seen a number of buffalo on our drives and so we signed the paper. Sam pointed out to me later that if they are put on the endangered species list then they wouldn't be able to be farmed anymore. I don't eat buffalo so it doesn't really affect me but I didn't like that Yellowstone was culling buffalo to appease cattle ranchers. Anyways we observed Tower Fall and continued our journey. I was especially looking forward to seeing Mammoth Hot Springs because I mistakenly believed I could swim in them (you can't). I even had brought my swimming shorts and towel with me.

We stopped briefly at Petrified Tree but didn't even get out. You could see the tree it was named for from the truck and it was.... not spectacular... to say the least. We didn't stop again until we got to Mammoth Hot Springs. It was a really cool area. Very different from the rest of Yellowstone and we spent over an hour wandering the boardwalks and taking pictures. There were a ton of people and its probably the second busiest spot after Old Faithful.

Sam and I were both pretty beat so we headed back to Bridge Bay for the night again. We stopped at Lake Village and bought some firewood and fire starters and they were out of power interestingly enough. Once we got back to camp we prepared a meal of ramen and cream of chicken soup. I still hadn't bought an axe (doh!) but we were able to get the fire going and keep it on until we ran out of firewood at 9:00. We toasted marshmallows for s'mores and had hot chocolate before watching some TV and going to bed. I had put the tent over some gopher holes and was nudged in the back twice by a confused gopher as I drifted off to sleep.

The next day our intentions were to drive to Grand Teton early and get a first come first serve campsite and do some hiking and rock climbing.