Day Twelve

Today, we went to Yellowstone.







It's been one of the best days ever.

It's about 40 miles to the entrance. So, we knew it was going to be another big driving day. And my GOD, it really was. We must have driven maybe 180 miles. But it was all incredible. Every single mile was breathtaking.

We've seen so much. We started by driving up Grand Loop Road, clockwise, towards Old Faithful. We passed beautiful trees, burnt trees, lakes, streams, rivers, waterfalls, a little creek filled with water lilies, forests, mountains. This was all in the first 30 miles. The ENTIRE time Tim was on BEAR WATCH.

We hit geyser country, and started to drive past steaming geysers, all very impressive until we got to old faithful. With ice cream in hand we stood with the HUNDREDS of other people, waiting for the 3.40 eruption. And pretty much dead on time it blew. UnBELIEVABLE. God, nature RULES. It was truly awesome.

Then we drove onwards, seeing canyons and more mountains. At one point we saw three small dots on the horizon. We decided these were bears.

Then we saw a BISON. OH MY JESUS. IT WAS HUGE. It was sitting by the side of the road, just chilling out. Two U-Turns later and we had it photographed. 10 minutes down the road we basically seemed to hit Bison country. They were everywhere. At one point a Bison started walking towards the car. I went into full panic, half wound up the window, put the car into park, tried taking the handbrake off. Tim is, at the same time (Bison now RIGHT NEXT TO CAR) saying

"Don't look at it! Don't look it in the eye"

Whilst I'm trying to get our parked car moving. God only KNOWS how we would deal with a Bear.

It was just so amazing. Everytime we saw a cluster of cars stopped, we would pull over to see what they were all looking at. We saw deer and elk and bison aplenty. If we'd had Binoculars we would have also seen WOLVES.

Started the drive back a little late. Ended up driving about 100 miles in pitch dark, rain, on roads with deer prancing about like idiots. It was really intense. Couldn't really see much. It was so scary. The stuff of horror films. I think we will probably leave a bit earlier tomorrow!

Yellowstone could be the Garden of Eden. Even the light seemed different, more magical.

Can't wait to go back tomorrow.