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Yellowstone Day 2

Now isn't that the most creative title ever?

I realize however, that I did not fully cover day one. After seeing all of the unique geological features and napping in a meadow, we decided to go see the falls on Yellowstone River. The lower falls were too far away for us to really get to see them, but the overlook for the Upper Falls is literarly over the falls, and they were rushing! A storm seemed abrewing, so we didn't stay too long.
Shortly thereafter, we couldn't decide what to do and we were getting hungry. It was too early to drive back to our campground for the evening and our campground was too far away to drive back to and then leave again. So we started driving toward it. On the way, we crossed over Yellowstone Lake. There were a number of scenic overlooks, so we decided to stop and have dinner at a picnic table there, a lovely lakeside picnic of hotdogs and baked beans. The horizon was beautiful- sunny where we were, boats out on the lake, with the faroff mountains shrouded in clouds with the approaching storm. We figured we'd have more than enough time to eat before it neared.

WRONG. Just as everything was heated and we were ready to eat, the storm came agalloping over the lake, almost out of nowhere. The ranger boat went out to bring all other boats in, and the serene lake surface turned into a mass of whitecaps. The wind was blowing everything everywhere, stirring up sand that bit into our legs- my hat went into the lake, even full Nalgene bottles were blown over. We hurriedly broke everything down and climbed in the car to sit and eat, a mess. Later, having eaten and driving back to our campground, we even had to move a fallen tree out of the road so that we could continue. And yet, somehow, we never saw more than a few raindrops.
Later, reading in the YNP literature about the lake, we found something to the effect of "Yellowstone Lake may appear calm and serene, but storms come up over her quickly, turning her even surface into a writhing mass of whitecaps." No kidding.

When we at last neared our campground that evening, we had the opportunity to be the people that caused everyone else to stop at the side of the road and wonder what we were looking at. A herd of elk, including at least 3 fawns that still had their spots, crossed the road and ate in the thicket just on the far side. We stopped to watch for about 15 minutes before they moved on through the woods- it was amazing.

Next time I will actually get to day two.

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 6:28 PM 0 thoughts