Diary for Harry and Judy's RV Trip


Day 41-Yellowstone National Park Lower Loop

2011-05-27

Woke up this morning to about 3” of snow and sleet with plenty of sunshine and bright blue skies -it’s beautiful, but it’s still snow. And cold-only 28 when we got up and only went up to about 40. Picked our way carefully over the snow and ice to the campground office to meet the tour bus for our tour of Yellowstone’s upper loop just as the driver called to say the roads had been closed in the upper loop so we decided to do the lower loop. Part of this loop is the way we’re driving when we leave here so we weren’t going to drive it before we left, but if we do it today we won’t have to stop to see things when we leave and can get to our next stop sooner.
Beautiful trees and mountains covered in new fallen snow and then we saw a herd of buffalo in the river with a few calves just munching on grass. More buffalo on the side of the road and even in the middle of the road. Saw some elk also grazing in the river but there’s supposed to be a lot more wildlife on the upper loop.
Stopped at a geyser area and saw some impressive geysers and then on the Old Faithful where we stopped for lunch at the Old Faithful Inn and then watched Old Faithful erupt. Very short but pretty cool anyway. Then on the see Yellowstone Lake and some waterfalls. Saw a grizzly bear and a cub in the far distance and more elk and buffalo.
Really cold and windy and then it started to snow again. We’re really high-about 9000’ and I’m having trouble breathing and walking. Harry’s fine, I’m just out of breath easily.
It was a whole day tour, we started this morning at 8 and got back to camp about 6. It’s sunny at the campground, all the snow is melted but the roads are wet, still cold, only 28, but we decided to go into town for dinner. Went to Wild Bill’s Pizza and then drove around town. It’s really small, just one main road with about 6 side streets only a block long on each side. It’s a real tourist town filled with motels, hotels, cabins, restaurants (all overpriced) lots of outdoor sports outfitting stores (fly fishing, snowmobiling, cross country skiing, hiking are big), souvenir shops. And lots of ice cream stores in one little place-Harry actually passed up ice cream, he must be cold. The garbage cans on the side of the roads are the bear proof kind. There’s a lot of people here, too. I can’t imagine what it must be like in the summer if it’s so busy now.
We got back to camp just as it started hailing again and it’s been hailing ever since and accumulating. We are going to try to drive the upper loop tomorrow in the truck and hopefully they won’t close the road again.