Hello from the Cody Wyoming public library! Ben and I spent the last couple of nights in Yellowstone National Park, including, but not limited to....my 24th birthday! Don't worry, I have been mentally preparing myself for weeks now by referring to myself as being 24. So it's nothing new.
We woke up on my birthday in our super sneaky stealth camping spot, which we had discovered the night before after downing a pizza and a pitcher of beer and befriending some excitable old men from Boston in West Yellowstone, Montana. When we woke up the next morning, we discovered that not only was our chosen tent pitching location only about 50 feet from the road, the entrance to Yellowstone was just about 100 yards away from us. So we heralded in my 24th year of life by stumbling out onto the sun-baked road, dodging the long line of tourist-filled RVs and motorcycles on our way to find some coffee and cinnamon rolls.
I had the idea that perhaps we would take it a bit easy on my birthday, catch up on some reading, journal writing, basking in the sun....it quickly became obvious that that was not really an option for the day. Turns out Yellowstone is BIG. And mountainous. Two factors I didn't quite absorb fully on my last two automobile visits to the nation's first park. So we spent my birthday doing a "light" day of 47 miles. 47 happy miles.
Yellowstone is beee-yoo-ti-full. The rumors are true. But apparently word has gotten out, because the place was literally crawling with traffic. Mini-vans full of exhausted looking parents and squealing children waving their electronic toys around. Bands of motorcycles blasting AC/DC carrying chubby leather-clad couples. Massive RVs as big as buses with cute names like "Featherlite" and "Freedom." They weave the roads in droves, stopping at each lookout to take 5,000 pictures then crawl back into their air-conditioned vehicles. I couldn't help but get a little jealous when we started up the 50th hill of the day, dripping sweat and breathing in car exhaust, but I still maintain that we are more "free."
We stayed that night at the Canyon Village campground in Yellowstone, in specially reserved "hiker/biker" campsites. We biked down to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone just as the sun was setting and had a picnic of boxed wine, camembert cheese and triscuits. As it happens so many times on this trip, the sleepy satisfaction I feel at the end of each day makes every drop of sweat, every incline, every numb toe worth it.
In other news, my body seems to have given up the majority of it's daily protests about why I would be forcing it to do such a strange thing for so many hours a day. I can feel more feet for at least half of the day now, and even my butt seems a bit happier with the situation. Still feeling the heat. Getting a little nervous about the wind rolling across these wide open states. Still a little boggled about how nice these rural western people are. Still making revolutions, though not all of them have been easy :)
We woke up on my birthday in our super sneaky stealth camping spot, which we had discovered the night before after downing a pizza and a pitcher of beer and befriending some excitable old men from Boston in West Yellowstone, Montana. When we woke up the next morning, we discovered that not only was our chosen tent pitching location only about 50 feet from the road, the entrance to Yellowstone was just about 100 yards away from us. So we heralded in my 24th year of life by stumbling out onto the sun-baked road, dodging the long line of tourist-filled RVs and motorcycles on our way to find some coffee and cinnamon rolls.
I had the idea that perhaps we would take it a bit easy on my birthday, catch up on some reading, journal writing, basking in the sun....it quickly became obvious that that was not really an option for the day. Turns out Yellowstone is BIG. And mountainous. Two factors I didn't quite absorb fully on my last two automobile visits to the nation's first park. So we spent my birthday doing a "light" day of 47 miles. 47 happy miles.
Yellowstone is beee-yoo-ti-full. The rumors are true. But apparently word has gotten out, because the place was literally crawling with traffic. Mini-vans full of exhausted looking parents and squealing children waving their electronic toys around. Bands of motorcycles blasting AC/DC carrying chubby leather-clad couples. Massive RVs as big as buses with cute names like "Featherlite" and "Freedom." They weave the roads in droves, stopping at each lookout to take 5,000 pictures then crawl back into their air-conditioned vehicles. I couldn't help but get a little jealous when we started up the 50th hill of the day, dripping sweat and breathing in car exhaust, but I still maintain that we are more "free."
We stayed that night at the Canyon Village campground in Yellowstone, in specially reserved "hiker/biker" campsites. We biked down to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone just as the sun was setting and had a picnic of boxed wine, camembert cheese and triscuits. As it happens so many times on this trip, the sleepy satisfaction I feel at the end of each day makes every drop of sweat, every incline, every numb toe worth it.
In other news, my body seems to have given up the majority of it's daily protests about why I would be forcing it to do such a strange thing for so many hours a day. I can feel more feet for at least half of the day now, and even my butt seems a bit happier with the situation. Still feeling the heat. Getting a little nervous about the wind rolling across these wide open states. Still a little boggled about how nice these rural western people are. Still making revolutions, though not all of them have been easy :)
Sounds magnificent! Really enjoying the blog so please keep posting! Happy birthday!
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