Greetings Friends,
Day 10 is our scheduled layover day to give us a chance to tour the remainder of Yellowstone Park. Our plan was to ride a 150 mile loop out of West Yellowstone, MT to see the southern portion of the park. The alarm went off at 6:00 AM. We dragged ourselves out of our beds and over to the window to check the morning weather--it was raining again. But, our spirits were not nearly as damp as the parking lot so we had breakfast, revised our plan to only ride as far as Old Faithful, the Grand Dame of the park, and then catch the lesser geysers, paint pots, and other natural phenomenon of the park on the way back. We clad ourselves in rain gear once again and set off for the park, less than a mile from town.
You may be wondering why were showing so many Buffalo photos. Well, it's because that all we saw today. As we entered the park and turned south toward Old Faithful, sixteen miles away, we immediately found ourselves sitting in stopped traffic. It's not unusual and generally means people in the cars ahead of us had spotted animals. However, on this occasion traffic continued to move, but at a snails pace. Something unusual was afoot, literally. Not the most patient of souls, we elected to go around the traffic jam on the right shoulder passing at least 50 cars before we arrived at the source of the problem. A herd of Buffalos was sauntering down the highway toward a distant meadow, without regard for the traffic snarl. After all, park policy says that animals have the right away.
Did I neglect to mention that the lady park ranger who was escorting the herd and keeping camera-toting tourists a safe distance from the animals also threatened to cite all of us for riding on the shoulder? No? Well never mind, she didn't. Frankly, after about 45 minutes of following the heard at about 2 1/2 miles per hour we got bored with the whole thing and decided to return to West Yellowstone for the day. By this time, there were well over 100 cars backed up. We'll see Old Faithful tomorrow. Hopefully the meandering herd will have found new digs by then.
Having returned to town, six of the seven dwarfs elected to take a little snooze while Tim and Snow White took in the I-Max movie on the history of Yellowstone Park. I think most of the boys were getting a little weary of so many consistent days in the saddle, recent bad weather, and short sleepless nights in strange hotel beds.
We ended our day with a nice Italian dinner, white table cloths and all. Total mileage ridden today - 36 miles.
Test question, can you pick out which buffalo above isn't real? Hint: It's painted. We'll explain tomorrow.
We'll also hope for better weather and road conditions tomorrow.
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