Thursday, September 4, 2014

Day 79: Bozeman to Yellowstone National Park


We awoke in Fowlkes’ driveway with temperatures back down in the 40’s.   I gave Ranger a short walk, but he was eager to get back and get into the house.  He bounded in and immediately ran around to find Marjorie!  We all gathered in the kitchen for coffee and tea and more conversation, and then moved to one of the sun porches for a big breakfast.

Marjorie’s garden was truly amazing, full of perennials, herbs, and vegetables, covering most of the side yard.  She gave me the tour of it, and I made notes of several perennials that I may want to try growing at home.  Then we relaxed in a porch swing alongside the garden for more talk and some bird-watching.  Her sunflowers had been very successful, and they were full of little birds, eating the seeds.

Around noon, it was time to leave.  They travel to Florida frequently in the winter, so we may connect with them again down there.

We had only about ninety miles to drive to get to the north entrance of Yellowstone.  It had been years since I had been there, and it was as wonderful as I remembered….but also as crowded with tourists!  I had expected that since summer was gone and schools were back in session, it might be less so, but especially around Mammoth Springs, the traffic was heavy and parking spaces were not to be found.  Leaving there, we could take either of two routes to our campground, and I picked the wrong one, putting us on a road with road construction delays.  (Other than that, it was a nice route.)  We finally arrived at Canyon Village at around 4:00.

This is a huge campground, with almost 300 sites, and the sign at the entry indicated that there was no vacancy for tonight. (We had reservations, so we were fine.) When we registered, we found out that our site is in the J loop, way up the road from the office and showers, perhaps a mile to a mile and a half!  The site is, however, a good one, just a bit of a slant that required leveling, under thick pines.

As the sun went down, so did the temperatures, so a campfire was a welcome addition to our evening activities.  We had chatted with people nearby who recently bought a used Navion, a few years older than ours, and they wanted to learn more about our experiences traveling in it.  So they came over to the fire to visit and we had an enjoyable time.


There are no hook-ups at this campground, so we cannot use our little electric heater. With forecast of a low of 30, we’ll be burning up some propane with our furnace tonight!  

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