Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam

September 14, 2024

We had a very nice stay in Bozeman on Thursday and Friday. I hope you enjoyed the video of Peter’s victory at the dump site!

Our RV park was part of Bozeman Hotsprings. This place had 6 indoor and 3 outdoor hot pools fed by hot springs (there were also 3 cold pools but where is the joy in that?). We spent a delightful time outdoors in a pool heated to 106 degrees while listening to live music. But wait—it gets better. They had full hot showers. Ah, bliss.

We also got to spend some time walking around downtown Bozeman. Cute town. After our stroll we enjoyed a delicious trout dinner at a restaurant called Bitterroot Bistro and then returned to the RV park in anticipation of an early departure Saturday.

Our drive to Yellowstone paralleled the Gallatin River which gifted us amazing view after amazing view. It reminded me of the movie “A River Runs Through It.”

We got to the entrance of the park without much traffic (sometimes waits at the gate can stretch into hours). But after we got through the gate there was still much driving to do. Yellowstone is the oldest National Park and the second largest in the lower 48. There is a loop system of roads and you drive from location to location. On our way to our campground (which was on the other side of the park) we saw our first buffalo. This single guy was no more than 10 feet off the side of the road just munching his lunch.

We then saw this herd.

Yellowstone is full of geothermal wonders. There are geysers like old Faithful (they shoot up), hot springs (a wanna be geyser that is constricted from spouting) and fumaroles (hot springs where the water evaporates quickly into a vapor). Today on the way to our campground we saw hot springs and fumaroles.

We stopped at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and took a quick—but steep— hike from the upper falls to the lower falls. Here is a video of the lower falls.

We finally made our way to our campground. After lunch and a nap (!) we took a quick hike to Yellowstone Lake which is very close to our campground.

It’s kind of chilly (54 degrees) to cook outside tonight so dinner is prepared in the rig. I am using a recipe from the cookbook ”Road Trip Cooking”—pasta with tomatoes,anchovies and olives. Except I bought sardines instead of anchovies 🙁 so it is pasta with heirloom tomatoes and olives. Still tasted good!

The altitude (7900 ft) is making us very tired. Bedtime is not so far away. Tomorrow is another day of adventure and exploration.