Extremophiles, Bison and a supreme lack of bears in Yellowstone

We were in Yellowstone......THE national park of National Parks.  It's got quite an interesting history and one that underlines just how recently a lot of this massive country was discovered by Europeans and the new government.  I make the distinction because of course, Native Americans have been living here for a few thousand years and so "discovery" is always a bit of a strong word to use.

Back in the day, there was an expedition that failed to find the gold it was seeking, so most of the members sloped off back to whichever city they were from to report their failure.  One intrepid pioneer stayed on, and carried on, and on.  Eventually stumbling into Yellowstone.  The story goes that he was so dumbfounded by the natural beauty of the area, people refused to believe his tales.  That was until a Government sponsored expedition validated his claims and brought serious attention to the area. Of course, there were others that had found the area and its riches of fur and minerals, but with the collapse of the fashion for fur hats, people's attention turned further west to the gold fields of California. Funny how a change in fashion could save a region from the white man's depredations.

So it was, the Government (with a big G) agreed to set aside a chunk of land and label it inviolate, to be forever free from commercial interest and for the general enjoyment of everyone.  The USA had its first National Park.

We, however, had a bed - and so after many hours of driving the National Park would have to wait!  Once unpacked, we fell down onto it and relaxed for a few hours.  We've learned to grab moments of rest and relaxation when we can and not constantly strive to see everything at the expense of our sanity.  Towards 6pm we got back into the car and decided to try and drive one of the loops of Yellowstone.  The road system is built in a figure of 8, with the larger loop on the top.  We weren't sure how long they'd take to drive, but we reckoned on doing 1 and then seeing about the other.

In the end we drove both and it wasn't until gone 10pm that we were racing home trying to catch the restaurants for something to eat before they closed......but I get ahead of myself.

What can you say to this?  It was honestly amazing to see this huge animal lumber past

Yellowstone is huge.  I mean massive.  Though that isn't something you perhaps see from the road and with Julia's foot still causing her pain, it wasn't something we really experienced.  It's also packed full of Bison.  As we drove around we began to see more and more of these huge creatures that look like someone draped a massive sheepskin rug over an oversized cow.  One moment was particularly memorable as we turned a corner and then there was a little exclamation from Julia as we were driving past a huge bull that was slowly lumbering down the road in the opposite direction.

Fair play to the animal, at least it was on the right side of the road :)  Other than all those bison, we saw the obligatory elk and deer, including one huge stag which was truly beautiful and caused a rather large traffic jam, just by standing still.

Our training around the world came into good effect as we took photo after photo from the windows of the car as we drove around the loop and then, in the oncoming dusk, we decided to head for home.  It was already pushing 9 and we were a long way from the lodge, Julia was tiring and so I hopped into the driver's seat and put my foot down.  In the end we missed dinner, but as we were hardly about to starve, we made do with a few rice cakes and got our heads down.

Breakfast the next day was heavenly.....mainly because the coffee was good and we could relax :)  then it was up and at 'em again.  This morning was all about the geysers and hot springs.  We went from location to location and oohed and aaahed at the beautiful ponds and lakes that the volcanic sub-strata had created over time.  The colours that lay beneath the surface of the water were amazing and combined with the steam and smell (mostly sulfur) we both were enthralled.

As ever, other tourists provided some excellent side-show entertainment.  This time we had a small display as part of an on-going piece entitled "American Dismay at Crass Asian Tourist".  The general theme of the show is watching utterly egotistical Asian tourists do ridiculous things with no regard for nature or their fellow man, then listening to the cries of dismay and gnashing of teeth from the indignant Americans in the vicinity.

In this episode we had a pair of Asian men (I believe Chinese), who with no regard for either their safety or the sanctity of a precariously managed natural ecosystem, decided it was fine to just walk out over the mud between the hot spring pools and geysers.  Ignoring the fact their feet could sink into highly acidic and super-heated water.  Ignoring the fact that at any point a geyser could spurt said highly acidic and super-heated water all over them.  Ignoring the fact that other people were trying to take photos and these bumbling berks weren't meant to be in them.  It was stunning to watch.

Alex Photo bombing Japanese style

Then it got better as GI Joe, a 50-60 year old ex-military American tourist starts yelling across the mud flats for them to get back onto the walkway.  His language was......choice......if by choice you mean he turned the air blue.  In fact the only reason he stopped using expletives was so that he could squeeze in the odd racial slur, then slip on back into effing and jeffing like the trooper he had so obviously once been.

One of the Asians took umbrage with the words used and warned him to watch his language, which only served to intensify the racist barrage.  In the end, Julia and I weren't sure whose side we were on.  It's difficult to like a man so casually racist and aggressive, but he was getting two d*ckhead tourists to behave themselves properly.

The line was however totally crossed, when we were walking away and he began to talk to us.  Upon learning where we were from, he told us he had once visited the UK and been to Bradford.  Hated every minute of it.  Why?  "Full of P***s!" he shouted out, with a laugh!!!

Yup, he was a racist and proud.  We were glad to walk away.

The rest of the day was a relatively calm drive through nature before we headed home for a rest.  So far I had been on "Eagle Eye Bear Watch".  This entailed me sat in the passenger seat with my eyes glued to the windows desperately trying to spot a bear.  No such luck so far.  So that evening we headed out again for a bit of a bear watch.

EXTREMOPHILES of the world unite!

Looking for a bear and all we found was more bisons stopping traffic

Again - no such luck.  Grrrrr.  I was beginning to get annoyed with the creatures.  When we returned we poured ourselves a brandy and went to watch Old Faithful by the light of the moon.  It was kind of cool (barring the idiot with the laser pen) to watch but mainly hear the rush and splutter of the geyser as it shot water and steam into the air.

Cheesy? Much!

ET Phone Home!

Next day was our last in the park and we once again took it nice and easy.  After breakfast we went over to Old Faithful to see him blow in the light.  He blew.  It was ok.  Seriously, I am not entirely sure what the fuss is about - there are (and were, but we missed it) much better geysers to watch around the park.

Where is Alex? Can you find him?

May I introduce, Old Faithful

We'd decided to drive straight up north, along the right hand side of the figure of 8, to take the north western exit and then head up to Montana and our log cabin.  However along the way we picked up a hitch hiker who told us that the Lamar Valley always  had bears in it and he had seen loads there.  Immediately our plans changed.

The Lamar valley

An utter lie - there were NO bears for 2 miles!  Mis-advertising if ever I saw it.

 
It was only a 30 mile detour after all.  We dropped him off at a crossroads, then headed down the valley.  Yellowstone had been all sorts of different countrysides so far, but we hadn't seen anything like this yet.  It was lovely, with the weather closing in slightly and beginning to rain, the wide open spaces enclosed by gentle slopes up into the hills were beautiful.

Again, the bison put in a good appearance, but the bears eluded us.  We reached the end of the valley and I thought we would turn around.  After all, like we had said, 15 miles each way wasn't a terribly large detour.  But Julia decided we would push on and take a different route.  A scenic route in fact.  We knew it was going to be scenic because it said so on the map.

The views from the top of this pass were incredible

What we DIDN'T realise was that it was going to add around 200 miles to our journey!!!  And not just 200 miles along a flat road that was straight and therefore we could cover in a few hours.  No, we were about to go over Bear Tooth Pass, a road that climbed and wound its way up one side of a mountain range and then did the same down the other side into Bear Tooth Valley.  The views were immense, the road was in the clouds after all.  There was still snow up here and you always know you're somewhere remote and elevated where there are road marker rods on the sides of the road for when the road is covered in snow and they don't want drivers to drive off into a ravine by mistake.

As we crested the mountain the GPS system showed us the way down and it looked like an Ordnance Survey map showing us the elevations of the mountain.  It was just a mass of squiggles on the screen.  Eventually I overtook the painfully slow people ahead of me and then we had fun pointing Billy Bob down the mountain and hairing round the hair pins.  At the bottom we filled up with petrol and the lady behind the till looked surprised that we had bothered with the pass.  She'd lived there all her life and only done it twice.  It scared her.

From here we had about another 2 hours to go and it was pretty plain sailing.  Once we crossed into Montana the landscape changed again.  Completely.  It seemed to me we were driving in a version of England ....just on a huge scale.  The rolling fields of grass seemed to go on forever as the road rose and fell gently into the distance.  The skies were a deep blue and the sun was shining down; honestly it was idyllic.  So drastically different from our times in the deserts of Utah, Arizona and Nevada.

This drive was picture perfect

Eventually we reached Livingstone and after a quick pit-stop at the supermarket we moved on to the remote farmstead that housed our log cabin.  It was nestled on a lovely piece of land at the foot of some mountains, surrounded by green fields where cows grazed.  A couple of paddocks held some calm horses and the cabin....well the cabin was just perfect.  If you imagine a log cabin and then remove any evidence of insect life, spider's webs or discomfort, then this would be it.  It was stunning.  The bathhouse (according to Julia) smelled of sheep (or goats.....she still can't decide), but that was also a delight, along with the outdoor shower on the side of it.

That evening we had a simple meal of grilled sausage and salad and then went to bed in our romantic little cabin, set in the most wonderful of rural surroundings.