Saturday: Yellowstone y Más

Two Posts at one time. Yikes! If you want to go chronologically, you should read Friday first (assuming the last one you read was thursday of course)

(David) 10:30 alarm, a quick shower, and checkout and we were off once again. Today, we hoped to drive through Grand Teton and Yellowstone park and make our way into Montana.

Breakfast was going to wait as we wanted to get a little ahead on the road. Bernard was being a little slow in getting a head on his bearings, so I chose an easterly highway and started going. Bernard finally pulled through and decided we shouldn't take the highway. That's how we ended up in lovely back country, on the Grand Teton Bypass. We passed through a couple of quaint towns, like Victor Idaho ( "a scenic place to rendezvous") and Wilson, WY. Eventually, passing through more mountains, we ended in a slightly bigger city called Jackson. There, we stopped for gas and then looked for food. I wanted BBQ...like a pulled pork Sandwich....mmmm.....and Bernard suggested Teton Barbeque...except it wasn't there. Way to be Bernard.

So, we drove around and ended up at a Chinese Buffet for afternoon meal (since we kinda missed breakfast.) The food was quite tasty for a chinese buffet, and I've been to my fair share of them. Matt was somehow convinced that the chicken was actually cat, but we ate it all the same (Matt: and enjoyed every bite of it). ;) After cracking our fortunes ("Seek first to understand, and then to be understood" and something else that was quickly lost and forgotten; aka Matt's fortune), we left that town burning and continued toward Grand Teton/Yellowstone.

Apparently, to even drive through the park itself (which is the only highway through as going around is another 3 hours extra) the nice ranger told us it cost 25 dollars. What a toll indeed. It had better well be worth it then.

IT WAS. Grand Teton had gorgeous mountains, spiring high and blanketed in snow. Teton Lake was frozen over and it was very large. We stopped to pick up a rock (25 bucks, a rock seemed the least we could take away). We then arrived at Yellowstone: America's First National Park.

Yellowstone is rather easy to navigate, It has one circular highway (that takes a few hours to drive around, and branches to each corner of the earth...or park rather. It had very dense forest in an almost claustrophobic sense. I suppose I wasn't used to it after the wide open expanse that was before. After picking up another rock, we decided to go and see Old Faithful, since it wasn't too much out of the way. The vents were quite spectacular. There were bubbling water holes and smokey geysers (in which David wrongly pronounced them as "Geezers", but should be forgiven due to how old they actually are ;) ). Old Faithful wasn't as faithful as it was old because it didn't erupt, but the other geysers were awesome, some of them spitting and we got one good erupting one. We have a few nature videos for you, no worries. ;)

Walking back, we found a baby's bonnet on the boarded walk (the walk was used to avoid being injured by "Thermal Areas"). After we both starred at it for a good thirty seconds, I decided picked it up in hopes to turn it in to a ranger. (Matt) In those thirty seconds, I thought about picking it up, but I thought we would never see the ranger again, so I didn't see the point. Also, since we couldn't see any babies around, I also considered jogging back on the trail to a hill to see if any babies could be seen from there. My pondering of these complex ideas is what led to David picking it up. This was a good feat as I probably wouldn't have picked it up at all (even after all of the ideas to save the poor baby, with its progressively cooling head). (David) I didn't want the bonnet to blow into one of the geysers, so I picked it up and we continued on. As we were at the end of our little tour through the boardwalks, Ruth texted us and wanted to know if we were still in Yellowstone. She was on a page that gave updated photos of Old and not Faithful every 30 seconds. Well, our quest was to find the camera...which we did, as Ruth gave descriptions of who was walking past it. We snuck up on it, and posed. We heard Ruth's excitement over the phone as she saw us.


Though she could see us, not being able to see her helped us we realized just how far we were from home and started to miss people. We went into the lodge, just to see it. I was upset that they were serving Pulled Pork BBQ sandwiches...oh cruel irony. It was too expensive($5.75 for ONE SANDWICH!), so Matt dragged me out and to the parking lot.
David: It wasn't that bad. A pita from Pita Pit is the same price.
Matt: David... your sandwich was just MEAT-on-a-BUN. That's not worthy $5.75. I don't care how badly you want your fix of slopped meat on a plain white bun.

(David) After going back to the car, we drove through the parking lot and caught a few of our missing license plates (Matt: including most of the provinces of Canada). :) Then it was onward toward Montana out of the east exit. We drove by lake Yellowstone which was ginormous! Also, there was a turnout with more steam vents. One vent actually under a smaller lake, and we could see the crack all the way through the ice where it ran. The sign told us politely that it was still unstable and could blow the lake up at any moment. Thank you for that lovely piece of information. (Matt) We hastened to leave the area and continued. Soon after, we discussed how the plural of "buffalo" is "bison", and that the plural of "bull" should be "bilsi" since "buffalo" diverts from the typical rules of english spelling, and how they are kinda similar in sound (a B, U, and double concenant) and how bison and bilsi are very most certainly related. On another note, is the word buff related to the name buffalo? If so, what does "alo" mean? And why aren't they called "fuffalo" (plural "flison")? That sounds more fun. ;) And, speak of the devil (plural: "difin"), we soon found a fluffy, buff cousin of the bull walking up the middle of the winding mountainous road. After making him or her (David: "...it had balls") feel like the Yellowstone superstar that HE is by looping around HIM four times, we decided to take a brief video instead.

600 pictures later (totally worth 25 bucks), we reached the end of the park and shot out of Wyoming, passing through some towns. We wanted Taco Bell, and Bernard told us there was one in Cole.....which when we arrived, was non-existent. Come on Bernard. Oh but there is another one the next town over in Powell. Wait no, that one ended up being closed....*sigh* third strike and you're out Bernard.

McDonald's would suffice. They even had free wifi which we took advantage of. We ended up closing the store. Matt wanted a sweet tea, and i went into the play area and messed with the spinning match sort of games (like different heads, bodies and legs that you can spin around and mix and match...yeah) Coming out, Matt looked at me with some despair and asked if i had went through the play place without him. :( I laughed and said we were against the rules. Yet, he abruptly went and asked the manager lady as she was locking the doors if we could climb into the play place and get a picture. Reluctantly, she obliged. So we climbed up and then slid down the slide (i went down backwards on my back.) What memories it brought back. It was AWESOME.

Blasting out of the McDonald's, we agreed that Taco Bell would have to be a stop for tomorrow. I found the bonnet in my pocket and threw it in the back. Then, I ended up calling Rachel on the phone since she returned from camp that night. It was great to hear her voice and her laughter again. I missed her. Matt found the bonnet and burst out in laughter, then proceeded to wear it. It actually looked pretty sweet, almost pirateish. (Rachel was broken with laughter at hearing all of this on the phone.) It has since become the blogging bonnet, to be worn while blogging. (i'm wearing it right now actually.) Anyways, Matt wanted to blog and realized my computer wasn't in the car....I had given it to him....and he thought he may have left it on the ground or on top of the car. OH NO! Turning around on a dime, I literally sped back to the McDonalds.....it wasn't in the parking lot. Panicking, i ran across the street and found it in the road in it's case. I brought it back and opened it up to see if it still worked. Everything seemed to be in good working order...Thank you Jesus. Now, however, I have full right to make fun of Matt for the rest of his life. "He probably just left it on top of the car again." ;)

Through pitch black darkness, I couldn't tell if we had arrived in Montana yet. It all felt a little strange and there were no signs that i could see for many miles.
Me: "These highways are weird."
Matt: "Yeah, I know..."
(five minutes pass)
Me:"Are we in Montana?"
Matt: "Mmm... yes...we are."
Me: "I didn't see a sign...lame. I haven't seen any speed limit signs yet either."

New phrase for the day:
"Montana: we don't have signs for anything."
or
"Montana: because street signs are for city folk."

Eventually, there was one flashing sign we found.

(Matt) Montana flashing sign: "Arrive Alive. Don't text and Drive."
Way to go Montana. It's good to see that you have your priorities straight. Thank you for the reminder not to text while driving as I race home after getting wasted at the bar...

(David) We finally arrived in Billings Montana. I had driven the whole day and though it took most of our time to go through Yellowstone, we were in Montana...really just for the sake of being in Montana. Our original intent was to find a speed limit sign that said "Drive safely." but all we saw were posted limits (though no one seemed to follow them) Another Motel 6, another night spent.

P.S. I'm wearing the bloggin bonnet, if you couldn't tell ;)