Yellowstone National Park

West Yellowstone, Montana

We entered the park from the east gate and left from the west gate. It was a long climb up to the park entrance. 

Monday morning, before we left Cody, I got a call from Charlie, our mechanic in Massachusetts. He congratulated me for making it out west. 

He said he was worried that we would make it. He just wasn't sure that the cooling system design was going to cut it in the mountains.

Thanks Charlie, your timing is always impeccable.

We stopped to let the engine cool at this canyon. Going slow has its benefits. 

We made it to the pass but heard a loud bang under the doghouse and suddenly we were showing no oil pressure. 

We were burning a little oil all the way so I had just stocked up. We topped off and proceeded to our campsite at Bridge Bay without further incident.

Bridge Bay is a beautiful campground. It's not an RV park so we were boondocking. The buffalo completely ignored us but it was hard to ignore them. They are huge.

Wurstchen LOVES the buffalo grass.

The edge of Bridge Bay from our campground.

A short walk to the mouth of the bay.

Two bull elk also wandered through, right outside our window.

One day later the buffalo acted like they would press up against the side of the RV.

Another beautiful sunset followed by amazing stars. When you are clearly seeing the milky way, it is really overwhelming.

There was a woman sleeping in her small SUV. She left when the bison came out and didn't come back until the next day.

The next day, 4th of July, we drove down the lake to see the West Thumb basin.

This fumarole was under water off the shore of Lake Yellowstone. 

So many colors.

Blue Hole

Green Hole

And then on to Grants Village for services, but we missed the turn....

... and headed back east across the continental divide. Realizing our mistake after a few miles, we slowed down and headed into the pull out in the picture above.

At this point, with the engine already hot, the lack of air flow when we slowed put her over the edge. 

There were no fireworks allowed in the Park. Josephine created her own fireworks as she passed away in a massive cloud of white smoke, July 4th at about 1:30pm.

A car stopped to ask if we were ok. They thought we were on fire.  They said they would tell the rangers and we settled in for wait. 

It gave us time to reconcile ourselves to our fate but also to do it in a pretty nice setting.

After a short while Ranger cars came flying down the hill with their emergency lights on. I waved but they didn't slow at all.

Then one came back and asked if I was waving just to wave or waving because I needed help. Oh and was my rig on fire?

The all female response team were glad to have a big "nothing burger", and proceeded to stand down the other resources that had been dispatched to help the burning RV.

The fire crew practiced with their thermal imaging equipment and the ranger called in a tow truck. The tow truck driver didn't think he was going to be able to pull us. He did though when he saw our gross vehicle weight. It does look a lot bigger than it is.

The National Park tow truck driver can only take you to the park's edge. Then Craig from West Yellowstone towing met us.  The hand off is because of Government rules according to the driver from the park service.  According to Craig, it's the Park driver's boss who has a monopoly in the park and is too cheap to pay for the town permit like everyone else.

In any case, meeting Craig was a good thing for us.  He was in a hurry but put us on the city land in the photo above. We can stay for up to a week. It's not bad at all, right in the middle of town.  

Craig had to hurry off because he was in the parade.

It was the quintessential small town 4th of July parade. We really enjoyed it.

This tour bus is normally over at the museum.

That's Craig driving Outlaw, his TransAm.

That military vehicle had water cannons on it. It was like being at Songkran in Thailand.

Wouldn't be a western parade without horses.

Permanent town art.

They gave us a perfect seat to watch the town fireworks from our front window.

Nice show.

Friday we rented a car to go back into the park and pick up some things left at our camp site.

The scenery at Yellowstone is just unreal and super real in one moment to the next.

Big fumerole.

These guys caused quite a traffic jam.

This Grizzly took his time walking across the river from us.

Old faithful was going off just as we arrived.

We came on this one bubbling away. It looks a bit like a fish. This one didn't smell fishy but dinner of them did.

Some of the unreal landscape

And the super real.

Back in town for Chili Renos from the bus.

There is an interesting museum here.

This is Snaglepuss the town dump bear until it was shot by poachers in 1970. The snagle in his name is from one of his incisors coming out at an angle.

Beaver Dam and Huckleberry Grizzly claw from the sweets shop across the street.

Guard dog of the Serengeti

Grilled salmon and chicken breast.

Our West Yellowstone villa.

The old railroad dining hall beside us.

As Friday night sets. Craig said there is no point taking us up to the industrial yard near Bozeman where we are going to have the engine fixed. 

He suggested that he'll take us up late Sunday so we can enjoy our weekend in town.