2010 June 19th:
Mark:
We had some rude people in the campground last night and because of their rudeness I didn’t get much sleep. These people pulled into their site at around 12:30am and left the diesel truck running and the headlights shining right into our tent. I actually got up and walked over to the restroom and when I had come back to the tent the people were gone and the truck was dark and silent. These same people saw fit to wake us up at 5:30am with their noisy truck and their talking. They left after a few minutes but it was too late for me as I was wide awake.
I got up and did some picking up around our campsite, but it didn’t take very long before I was getting a little chilled. I got back into the tent and my sleeping bag to warm up. I never did go back to sleep because there were some others that were up and making noise. I woke up Niko and we started to pack up the stuff in the tent just as we heard raindrops hitting the tent. The rain didn’t last long and nothing got wet enough to worry about. We put on our riding gear and then I fired up the little stove and boiled some water. We had brought along some instant oatmeal and some instant hot chocolate. After we ate that we also had an energy bar and that was a good breakfast. We cleaned up and then finished packing and we were ready to go by about 8:30am.
We drove over to the visitor’s center to get a stamp in the passport, but they weren’t open quite yet. Since I’m not one to wait around, we drove off and we were in Yellowstone National Park about 5 minutes later. After a brief encounter with the Park Ranger at the entrance gate, we were on our way through the park. We saw so much wildlife it is hard to remember it all. There were Bears, Elk, and Bison by the hundreds, a lone muskrat and birds I have never seen. On two separate occasions a single bison was trapped on the road and didn’t know where it could go. It was too steep on either side of the road and with cars in both directions blocking the road. On the first occasion we were just riding along and came around a corner and here is a bull Bison in the road, confused and not sure what to do. We stopped and started to back up to give the big guy some room so that he could get by us without panicking and charging us. He was way bigger than we were and we didn’t want him to get scared. He was already starting to panic and didn’t know which way he could go. Once he realized that we weren’t a threat, he moved on by us and headed on down the road behind us.
We stopped at Old Faithful and just as we were arriving we saw this plume of steam rise in the air. I thought that this was great since this allowed us some time to park and to go through the buildings. We got the passport stamped and then we went through the grand lodge. We grabbed some snacks from the bikes and then went to sit down and wait. Old Faithful went off about 3 minutes later than they predicted and erupted for about 5 minutes. Afterward, we took the walk around the other geysers. We were both still dressed for riding in the cold and we were extremely over heated in the sun without any wind. We went back to the bikes and got back on the road.
Since this was a Saturday on a holiday weekend, I think that the traffic was more than we expected. We rode over to Lower Falls and did the trip to see all of the lookouts and we took pictures at all of them. We stopped at the visitor’s center at Canyon Village and got the passport stamped again. We headed toward the North entrance of the park so that we could find a place to stay. Once we were out of the park we drove to Livingston Montana and we ate some dinner. We decided to take a quick run up the freeway to Bozeman Montana where we found a great place to stay.
The ladies at the front desk were very nice and supplied us with freshly baked cookies. We both used the pool and the hot tub and sauna for a few minutes.
The day was very lazy as we only traveled 212 miles all day with many stops. I doubt that we would have even gotten that far if it wasn’t for the 75 miles we rode after the park. We got to Bozeman Montana around 7:30pm, so this turned out to be a rather long day.

Niko:
I woke this morning to moist, cold feet and the sound of rain and birds. The rain only lasted a couple minutes, but we got out to dry the tent after it stopped and within minutes we were both freezing. We packed up quickly, cooked up oatmeal and drank hot chocolate. I was so anxious to get something hot in my stomach; I burned my tongue on the hot chocolate. We finished up, geared up, and got on and rode over to the lodge for stamps, but it was closed.
On the road again! Riding up towards Yellowstone was pretty, but not near as pretty as when we arrived. I walked up a path near a waterfall at the entrance that dad decided to skip, and about wore myself out doing so with my boots on. Later, we got to Old Faithful and the nearby “Old Faithful Inn,” which had amazing architecture. We had about an hour, so we did passport stamping, and grabbed food at the bike, and the camera to catch Old Faithful in action. It was a few minutes late and several minutes long, and definitely stunning. We visited some other smaller geysers nearby and walked too far for what we wore. After all was done, we got back on the bikes and rode on the route to Lower Falls. A stop was made in canyon village to check the map, get a stamp, and look for water. Water was a bust, but we hopped on and moved out.
Lower falls was quite a dizzying sight to behold. With sheer cliffs on either side of the lookout paths, we kept to the center of paths as much as possible. A girl with purple tipped blonde hair gave me googly eyes at one stop. We were soon tired of stopping every five minutes, and rode on. Two separate times, bison got trapped on the road, and the first time, I rode in too hot and got too close for comfort to a very scared bison maybe two or three times the size of my bike and I. I backed off to make him feel a little braver and move on and it slowly worked.
Stopping frequently became normal and we were hardly moving through the park at any respectable pace, but we got out and were on our way to Livingston Montana! We arrived at the small, sleepy town and stopped at Taco Johns for food, then moved on via the dreaded freeway to Bozeman Montana. We got rained on during the ride here, and I remarked that it was my first rainy-ride experience. This wonderful Days Inn was full of amenities like an indoor pool, dry sauna, fresh cookies, a large room, and chef catered breakfast for tomorrow. We just drank some creamy hot chocolate and are settling in to sleep. I’m also getting quite tired, so sleep is sounding quite nice. Good night, reader.