Driving to Seattle: Leg 3 | More Yellowstone and Idaho!

Jen here. Our 3rd leg consisted of packing up, sight seeing in Yellowstone and driving to my birthplace. Yay! After freezing during the night, we packed up our things and prepared to leave the campground. I was hoping we would see some wildlife--especially for Roy's sake. It was his first time to Yellowstone! A buffalo wandered into our campground grazing the grass. The other campers watched at a distance but weren't surprised. They said he came there every morning. Hm. I got out my camera and shot some photos at a distance (with Dad's voice in my head warning me about all the people who have been gored by buffalo) and Roy headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Several minutes later I wondered why Roy was taking so long. I wandered toward the bathroom and BUFFALO and Roy! Apparently he was thirsty so he decided to drink the puddle of water outside the men's bathroom door. Roy noticed and was very careful not to make any sudden movements. The buffalo slurped the water up like a dog and looked at Roy a few times, then went back to drinking. I went back and grabbed my camera and shot some pics of Roy's encounter with a buffalo. Yay! :) Disclaimer: Buffalo (or, okay this may be a Bison...really, does it matter?) are very dangerous and I praised God that Roy and everyone else were safe. The buffalo eventually walked away and Roy snuck out the door and we were off.
We drove around most of the main road loop in Yellowstone looking at the GORGEOUS scenery and some wildlife along the way. We saw a few bears (in the distance), many buffalo and a fox. We stopped and hiked near the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone--AMAZING! I could have stared at the scenery all day and still wanted more. At lunchtime we stopped at Tower Fall and planned to go for a short hike, but I was hungry and Roy was hot. He headed into the gift shop while I grabbed some food from the cooler. I shuffled back and forth between the front door and back door and one time the door shut before I caught it and I pulled on the handle and...NOOOO! It was locked! Oh no!! The keys were on the seat by the cooler...and next to my sandwich I just made. NO!! I prayed and tried to open every door. No luck. :( Shaking I went in to find Roy to tell him what I did. He was very calm and told one of the rangers he locked the keys in the car(What a husband! He claimed my mess up!). The ranger gave him a phone and number for a mechanic. Roy called and then told me to pick out a prize from the gift shop. Needless to say, I had TONS of time to browse. I know every piece of merchandise that shop carried. Most of the shirts, mugs, cups, glasses and bowls had buffalo, but some had deer, elk or moose. If you gave me a piece of paper and had me draw up the floor plan for the shop, I could do it. The mechanic had to drive from Cody, WY through Yellowstone up in the mountains on the 35mph road to us. Yikes. About two hours later he came and it was no big deal to get in our car, though it was a big cost. :( I picked out a mug, though reluctantly because I thought it would remind me of my awful mess up and our miserable time waiting two hours to get into our car. Now I smile looking back at it. It was no fun. I was hungry, Roy was feeling sick, it was hot outside and we just used up the last bit of our time in Yellowstone browsing in a gift shop! Anyone who has seen my drawings of mountains may recognize these. The mountains of my birthplace!! This was my second time returning since my family moved to Ohio in 1998. We stayed with my God-parents and got to catch up with them and two of their sons whom I haven't seen for years! It was a GREAT time...I love going there. We need to spend a little more time there sometimes. Both visits were less than 24 hours... :)My God-parent's oldest son was looking for a ride to Missoula, MT to pick up a truck so we condensed our things to create a spot in the back seat for him and off we went. Over the three-hour drive we got to know Crispin a lot. He's at least 10 years older than me, so when I was a kid I never knew him; I only heard stories about him. He was a kind of mysterious older brother of my friends. I enjoyed catching up with him and hearing his take on life, which seems to be very common to the west coast. I took it as a cultural learning experience and time getting to know him. We were able to share some about our life as well and had a great time. We dropped him off in Missoula, stopped at a McDonald's for the free WiFi and a bite to eat and continued on. (Hong Kong totally took away my bias against McD's.)

Seattle is about 9 hours from Missoula; we arrived just after dinner. Aww...it's nice to be back to Seattle. I wonder what it will be like to live here again. :)

Driving to Seattle: Leg 2 | Yellowstone!

Jen here. After sleeping decently well in our tent, Roy cooked us eggs for breakfast over his little cook stove. It looked like rain and sprinkled off and on as we had breakfast, packed up and took showers. Speaking of the showers, how interesting. They were pay as you go showers, except we had no idea how long the water ran per 25 cents. So Roy went with $1.00 and had to dry off with conditioner in his hair. I went second, so Roy sent me with $1.50, which was great, but it felt like a car wash where you have just a tiny bit of money. Rush! :)

All squeaky clean, we headed off, destination: Yellowstone NP. Gorgeous views on the way--fields, valleys, farms, mountains, hills, badlands--God's creation is awesome! The drive with Roy was so much fun. We got to chat with one another and call family. We got to soak in our Maker's greatness. Wonderful.

We stopped at Buffalo Bill Dam and at the crest of a hill to shoot some photos of Lake Yellowstone (I think).

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking; there are so many I want to post!






Our lodging for the night was a campground in Yellowstone (Bridge Bay I believe). Yay! I LOVE camping with Roy. My family camped a few times in Yellowstone when I was a kid and a few times elsewhere, and I always had a blast. While we were setting up our site I kept looking around, waiting for a buffalo to graze into our campsite...I must admit, I was a little scared a bear would walk out of the woods and try to eat our food. Upon entry into the park and again when we entered our camp ground, we received MANY warnings and rules. No food outside or in your tent. No perfume in your tent. No anything that a bear might possibly want in your tent. Last time I went to Yellowstone, I never read these papers; my parents did! I kept thinking back to old trips there. I remember stories of buffalo goring people, and I vividly remember Dad warning us to stay away from wildlife. One day when my family returned to our campsite, there was a HUGE buffalo grazing in the grass. Needless to say, we turned around and went to a gift shop for a while. When we returned the buffalo was gone. Would that happen on this trip with Roy?
Roy and I gathered enough wood for that evening and the next morning. Mom Almasy told us it was supposed to get down to 25 degrees. Yikes! She was right. It was SO cold. Neither of us slept much that night, though Roy slept more than I did. Yes, I was afraid some bear would come and claw into our tent (though we had NO food or even deodorant with us!)...but more than that, I was shivering! I couldn't get warm. We had a tarp down, our tent (of course) a wool blanket, two single air mattresses, and a double sleeping bag. We had to cuddle for warmth! Roy got up at 4:30am and built a fire to warm himself by...and I soon followed him. Isn't fire great?
Check out these old-school tents in a neighboring site. Sweet! The campground atmosphere was fun. An extended family seemed to be having a reunion/vacation of sorts. They had three sites and were in RVs. There were grandparents, kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. It was cute to watch them. What a great idea to do a family vacation camping trip! I'd like to do that someday. :) More later!