First I want to tell everyone who would have some reason to call on our cell phone that it will not work. We have no service out here in the middle of nowhere. I don't see anyone in the Park using a cell phone. The one woman we did see was standing in the middle of a grassy area again in the middle of no where. But she must have had service or she was talking to herself or she was a geocacher looking for a cache.
If anyone needs us you will have to contact us by email until further notice.
Okay! Here is what we see when we stand at the door of the trailer and look out. The other directions aren't so great but that's okay.
In the middle of the picture to the left side just below the line of trees there seems to be a dark gray oblong area. That is the Shoshone River that passes by just below us and "talks" to us all of the time. When Tom made the reservations last winter the owner here told him that we would be above the river but that the river didn't have any water in it at that time. Now the river has lots of water from the snow melt and is even overflowing it's bank in some places. And there's a lot more to come down.
Some of you have told me to take lots of pictures. Yesterday's count count was in the measily 230s while today's was 453 or 39x depending on whether Tom can find out what the laptop did to some of those pictures.
There were lots of pictures of bison. Each time they were a bit closer to me. But then I saw that some of the herds had the young with them. So I started in again. Then on the way home the traffic was stopped. When we got to the place where we could see what was happening we found that the bison wanted to go to the fields on the other side of the road. One big fella was standing in the road right in the middle of our lane of traffic. We were the fourth vehicle from him. Another big bison tried to pass between the second and third vehicles and didn't like the prospects there. Then he walked along side of the third vehicle and looked at the space between it and us. He was much happier with that and moved on in and just kept going. And I was snapping all the way. After he went through we continued on our way.
Last night we had an experience that showed me that wild drivers are not limited to Allentown or Bethlehem. Tom was parked in the parking lot while I was in a store. When I came out Tom started the van and started to turn left to come to pick me up. At the same time someone entered the parking lot behind and to Tom's right, came across behind the van and turned right up the left side of the van. I just stood there and covered my eyes. I could just "see" the van hit this car or the car hit the van. As it happened, I think, Tom saw what was happening and stopped. The other person just kept on going, parked his car and walked into the store. I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought we were going to lose the van.
There's a lot that I want to write about. The best that I can, and should, do right now is to list the topics and write later. It's been a long day from 9am to about 7:45pm. We were eating dinner at 8:15pm. Now it's bed time.
Snowballs at 7610 ft at 56 degrees on the Ides of June
Pictures of snow on the mountains at 48 degrees
Road washed out
wet hand and feet in Yellowstone Lake - ice
Waterfalls
Big Horn Sheep
Maybe more if my mind will let me remember.
I am just too tired. I will talk to you later.
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June 16, 2011 - This is an edit to write about the things I listed that I wanted to tell you:
One of the things we had in the back of our minds to do, or maybe it was just in the back of my mind, was that we would be able to "reach out" and touch the snow. We did better than that. We entered Yellowstone National Park at the East Entrance and immediately started to climb. The snow was on the ground and increased as we climbed in elevation. I asked Tom to pull into a turnout. We were the only ones there. We reached over the wall and touched the snow. It was like little pellets of ice. But it made wonderful snowballs. I didn't pack it too hard because it was ice and I was afraid that it would hurt Tom. Just think: Snowballs at an altitude of 7610 ft at 56 degrees on the Ides of June! How different than my usual experience. I guess we weren't the only ones who thought about doing this. All day long we saw people making and throwing snowballs.
I took many pictures of snow on the mountains. It was just a feast for the eyes. And it was only 48 degrees! One of the things that I saw but did not take a picture was of a couple on a motorcycle. We were in an avalanche area and were asked not to stop in this 2 mile stretch of road. But they just had to. The gentleman stayed on the bike which was parked on as much berm that was free of snow while his traveing companion crossed the road to take a picture of the height of the snow on the side of the road behind the gentleman. It seems that this road had to be plowed at one time and that this particular place had a snow drift on it. The snow was indeed much higher than the height of the man sitting on his bike and maybe even twice as high.
At one point we were cautioned to slow down because there was a traffic signal ahead. This was weird because even the major intersections didn't have traffic signals; only stop signs. As we came to the intersection we were told that there was a "one lane road" ahead. And indeed there was. When it was our turn to go we looked over the barriers to see the other side of the road from us and saw that half of the road had been washed away. So I guess there will have to be some major work there to repair it. I can just imagine what the traffic will be like there in another month.
In a little bit we came to a shore of Yellowstone Lake. The waves were breaking against the small stones at the edge of the water. The waves came in fast and I wanted to get my hand in the water without getting my feet wet. It didn't happen because all of a sudden a series of waves came in and broke higher and harder on the shore than I expected. I not only got my hand wet but also half of my right foot and the toes of my left foot. The water was warm on both my hand and my feet. My feet never did feel cold as my sneakers and socks dried while I was wearing them.
At another point on a shore of Yellowstone Lake there was a pile of chunks of ice lining the beach. In the lake on top of the water was something that looked like slush. It extended into the lake for about six feet or more. The waves must have deposited this ice on the shore line. There was someone who was taking a picture of a young man who had stooped down and picked up one of the pieces of ice. By the time we came past this place at the end of our day to go home there was no more ice on the shore line. We had agreed that the snow is indeed melting.
There are several waterfalls along this particular loop in the park. We took pictures of all that we saw. One of them required a long walk and I wasn't up to it. Tom offered to go get the picture to add it to a collection for a friend. I accepted and off he went. I can't wait to see the pictures. I haven't seen any of them yet. And he just told me that he can't find the two pictures that he took of me with the snowball! They aren't anywhere to be found. Not even in the recycle bin. Oh, well!
There are bisons all over the park. Just give them a chance and they will show up. We were hoping to see bear, moose, elk or some Big Horn Sheep. It wasn't until the end of the day and nearly out of the park that traffic was stopped. We figured it was because of more bison creating another traffic jam. Wrong! It was because of 10 - 12 Big Horn Sheep who wanted to leave the fields on our right and climb the rocks on our left. So they just crossed the road in spite of all of the cars! I hope the pictures turn out. I had wished for a moment that I had video so that I could see the leaping and the climbing of the rocks again.
One of the things that we are doing along the way on this trip is some geocaching. I've mentioned geochaching before. This is a high tech "hide and seek" game when someone hids something, usually some kind of container the size anywhere from the inside diameter of a quarter inch and length of about 3/8" to a 50mm ammo can. Sometimes it only contains a log as with the ultra small ones and you must bring your own pen to sign the log and sometimes it contains a lot of "swag", prizes that you can trade for something that you have brought along. The hiding spot is posted online as GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates. A geocacher has a GPS receiver and uses this to find the cache. Well, anyway, we wanted to add the western US states to our list of states in which we had found caches. We weren't successful to find them in all of the states in which we looked and we had to add Montana to that DNF (Did Not Find) list. Tom tried this particular one and it should have been easy. But after finding two snakes he decided a DNF wasn't too bad. He went online to post this DNF and warn of the snakes only to find that this cache went MIA and hadn't been replaced yet. Bummer!
These are some more of the things that kept us busy this day. Hope you are enjoying them.
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