We had a good laugh when we saw a monument of "Thunder Jack." We met a guy in Chicken who said his name was Thunder Jack, and he was full of crap! But according to this statute, Thunder Jack represents all the mountainmen and explorers who helped tame this country.
We drove alongside the beautiful Yellowstone River for many miles, and looked for a place to camp. We did see one deer along the highway today. We had planned on camping around Livingston, but the prices were too high, due to the proximity to the park, so we ended up driving 6 miles back a dirt road to a little state park, Dailey Lake Park. It was a pretty spot, but we had gale-force winds all night long and did not get much sleep. I wondered if the little lake could generate a hurricane, the winds were that bad.
We drove back out Monday morning and continued on our way, still driving along Yellowstone River. We were on the road by 8:30 and saw 4 deer before we got to the highway. We saw our first steam coming from the far side of this river, miles before we ever got into Yellowstone Park. We made a pitstop next to "Devil's Slide," and there was a sign here calling this the Wildlife Highway due to the migration of some of the wildlife from the park when it gets cold.
Joe washed the bugs off the windows here so we didn't miss anything. He has spent many hours on this trip washing our windows. I hope to continue this new hobby of his to the windows at home.
We arrived at the gates of Yellowstone about 10:30 a.m., and the line wasn't too long. We stopped to memorialize the occasion with a couple more pictures.
Our campground was 53 miles into the park, and we saw a mama elk with her baby shortly after we entered the park. By the time we got to our campground, we had seen 5 elk, 1 deer, 7 buffalo by themselves and then herds of a dozen and then 30. We also saw Canadian geese along the river.
We arrived at Fishing Bridge Campground right at 12:00 noon, and got set up. We decided to take a little drive and came across another herd of buffalo right across the road from the lodge. These may have been some of the same ones we saw as we came in.
We stopped at some of the thermal pools we had driven by in the RV, and watched the bubbling water and steam drifting into the sky. You can really smell the sulfur and whatever else is in these hydrothermal areas -- not a pleasant smell!
This one was named Dragon's Mouth.
Since Bridgette and John were unable to join us here, we took some photos of the bacteria pools for our family biologists. They would love it here!
We also stopped at the Upper Brink of the Cascade Waterfalls. It sure moves a lot of water. Joe caught a rainbow in the spray.
We drove around Canyon Village and then Lake Village and Bridge Bay before we ended our day. Right by the turnoff to Canyon Village Lodge we came upon 8 deer grazing.
Then we drove around Yellowstone Lake, which is huge, and very pretty. There were some geese and ducks on it, but we didn't scare up any other wildlife on this drive. We went in the lodge at Lake Village, and then drove around the huge Lake Hotel.
We drove back through Bridge Bay campground, which had closed yesterday for the season, but the gates were not closed. Just as we were exiting the campground there were two park guys ready to close the gates, probably for the season. We were that close to getting locked in there!
Tomorrow we plan on driving the Grand Loop, which includes Old Faithful -- a fitting event for my birthday. Joe says we are eating out all 3 meals, so I don't even have to cook or wash dishes tomorrow.
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