Bison, and elk, and bears, oh yes!

July 8, 2018

Mostly by Steve:

We left Pam and Las Vegas on Monday and spent one night at Spanish Fork. The next morning when we wanted to leave the slides would not come in. A call to our repair person revealed it was just weak voltage from the plug-in at the site that messed up the controller. A reset fixed that. Whew!

From there we went to West Yellowstone and spent July 4 watching 3 different firework shows from the front window of our RV. Steve grilled a steak. On to Yellowstone!

One on his side of the car

And one on my side of the car

Mammoth Campground is our first try at boondocking.  That’s camping in a motorhome without any utility hookups.  Our available water is what is in our fresh water tank.  Our electricity is what we can make with our generator and store in our batteries.  No generators after 8 pm or you will be fined $50.  Be careful what you send down the drain or flush down the toilet.  Everything must be stored aboard until we get to a dump station outside of Yellowstone.  We didn’t know how long we could live in the our Crackerbox Palace without full-hookups but it appears that we could go at least 4 or 5 days.  We will be doing this more often.  It saves a lot of money.  The RV park we stayed in before entering Yellowstone charged $82 per night.  Here we pay $10. ( That $10 is a special geezer rate.)

Mammoth Campground is beautiful.  We have photos so you don’t have to take my word for it.  However, it is not perfect.  We were assigned site #30 upon our arrival.  The camp host said, “it’s a great site, full shade and big enough to hold an 80 foot rig.  (There are no 80 foot rigs)  It did appear to be a great site but we could not find a level spot on it.  Our motorhome has leveling jacks that can correct for slight imperfections in a site but this site was too slanted front to back and side to side.  We tried moving the motorhome back and forth and right to left for 45 minutes but never came close to getting level. 

Being level is important.  The refrigerator has no moving parts.  It works by heating an ammonia-water mixture which rises to an upper chamber, cools and then descends by gravity to a lower tank.  The process then repeats itself.  I’ve read how this works to remove heat from the refrigerator but I really don’t understand the physics/chemistry.  It is counterintuitive to think burning propane cools our refrigerator.  Anyway, if the motorhome isn’t level the ammonia-water mixture doesn’t return from the upper to the lower chamber.  That means no cooling and possible damage to the refrigerator. 

Steve went to the camp host and told him of the trouble we were having.  They jumped in his golf cart and  surveyed all of the empty sites.  Steve decided that site #42 was our best bet and it did work out.  Below is the view out of our picture window. 

The campground is filled with a great variety of portable “homes”.  There are a few class A motorhomes like ours.  There are many trailers, a few camper vans but by far most people are sleeping in tents.  That’s roughing it too much for our tastes.  The campground has bathrooms with toilets and sinks but no showers.  That’s where I draw the line.  A day of hiking requires a shower at the end of the day. 

The view from our Crackerbox Palace at Mammoth Campground

Steve with his mustard, cheese, and Triscuits

The view from our chairs at the RV

Mostly by Nadene:

I sit here at our campsite looking across to a large mountain with a river at its base and small hills that we climbed this morning. In front of the hills is a busy road. We are at a place where we can watch cars stop and people get out to climb the hills or walk to the river.  The footing going up the hill is loose and most people struggle on the way up and carefully make their way down.  We haven’t seen anyone fall yet. One couple chose the hill as their sacred place.  Together they spread out a colorful blanket then stood, knelt and prostrated themselves as they said prayers. We know Muslims pray 5 times a day. St. Paul said “Pray without ceasing” and that is easy here because one is constantly grateful to be here and to be alive.

I finally got my wish to see bears. We were walking to Petrified Tree when to our right was a lovely grassy area with trees and I said, “This would be a good place for bears”, and a woman walking toward us said, “There’s a momma bear and her cubs up there waiting for you.”

About 60-70 yards from the path was a large black bear and three cubs. The cubs were climbing on downed tree trunks, jumping on each other like kittens, and climbing small trees while their mother ate something in the grasses. The cubs kept us all entertained for a long time. The park signs say to keep at least 100 yards from bears but as these were significantly lower than the path we were on so

we felt pretty safe.

Bear watching video

Mamma bear scratching her back on a tree

One little bear climbed a tree

 

There were 3 cubs and a momma bear

Anytime there is a long line in traffic, which happens frequently, it is usually because animals have been spotted. After having huge bison almost as big as our car walk casually on either side of the car and saunter on down the road oblivious to us, every sighting after that was just gravy. We saw elk multiple times but the closest we came was huge antlers sticking out of the tall grass beside the road and all we could see was the top of their heads as they sat and watched the traffic go by.

My dad brought us to Yellowstone when I was 18, but the only thing I remember is Old Faithful geyser and the Paint Pots. Also I remember that when we arrived he wanted to line us all up in front of the entrance sign to take a picture and we were all sleepy and reluctant to leave our beds in the RV. We were typical unappreciative teenagers. But the memory of dad wanting us to have the experience of traveling as a family out west is what remains with us all.

Mammoth Hot Springs, Upper Terrace

So much beauty to see and photgraph...

Stinky  boiling "paint pots"

Tower falls

Yellowstone River

So many glorious views of the canyons in Yellowstone

Lots of great hiking

Old Faithful

Hot Springs

More boiling springs

The earth is alive, pulsing and active, and constantly changing and this park makes that more evident. To think that while we are in the park we are in the middle of a “caldera”, the top of a volcano, is amazing. The crust of the earth is shallow here and boiling gases and steam and mud come out at many places. Sudden sights of steam rising in random places, waterfalls that are 8000 feet above sea level, crystal blue rivers running through green grasses below purple mountains—its breath-taking. Its July and hot here but there are still piles of snow in some areas beside the road and up on the mountain tops. How deep was it that it that some of it is still melting by the road in July?

Yellowstone National Park is everything you ever heard of it and more. Each day there is another amazing vista around the corner. Waterfalls, canyons, snow-topped mountains, geysers, bubbling pots of blue and orange, and wild animals. There are literally millions of people and cars and campers and RV’s here and sometimes finding parking is a challenge. Steve wants to come again because there is so much we did not see. We will be back in May or September of 2019.  We have seen a lot of beautiful places since we began our journey in March.  I wouldn’t want to rank one place against the others.  They all have been special in their own unique way.  Yellowstone is unique for being vast, varied and unspoiled.  If you haven’t been here, Yellowstone needs to go on your bucket list. 

P.S. Its tempting to go on a rant about some current atrocities in our country but you got lucky and I restrained myself.