Wednesday 9-9-26 Yellowstone National Park, Madison Campground & Site Seeing

 

We had a super day. 

We woke up to 43 degrees in Cody, Wyoming. The high in Yellowstone National Park in Madison Campground was 71 degrees. There was a little breeze.

We are very excited, we started the day out in Cody, Wyoming and ended up in Yellowstone National Park. Larry drove 120 miles from the Walmart in Cody to Madison Campground in Yellowstone National Park. We left Cody at 8:00 am. The drive to Yellowstone was beautiful.

We drove through a beautiful mountain pass and by Buffalo Bill Dam and Reservoir. We drove through three tunnels. The third tunnel was very long and it brought out to the Visitor Center of Buffalo Bill Dam. We stopped here last year so we passed it by. The reservoir was gorgeous and almost full. We entered into Yellowstone National Park at the East Entrance. We hadn't done this entrance in a long time. 

The lady who helped us was very friendly and asked if we wanted a map. Larry said yes. As we drove to Madison Campground we saw a few lonely bull bison and a herd of them in a meadow at Hayden Valley, a Grizzley bear climbing a hill at Grizzley Peak and a swan. The scenery was gorgeous. We saw tall pine trees, rolling hills, mountains and a small waterfall on the side of the road. We drove through Hayden Valley, by Fishing Bridge, along the banks of Yellowstone Lake, Norris Geyser Basin and did some site seeing.  We stopped in a parking lot we hadn't been in before and did a short hike 1.5 mile one way along the rim of the Yellowstone River. We stopped at the Upper Falls of the Grand Canyon of The Yellowstone. Then we continued walking the trail to the main parking lot to see the Upper Falls, which was about 1.5 miles. Then we turned around and went back to the Minnie. 

When we got back to the Minnie. We saw three cars behind the Minnie, they belonged to a group of people from Alberta Canada. One was an old Woody Wagon, a Porsche and a Corvette. Larry talked to the group. They said there was a group of 50 people, who belong to the club and travel around together. They just finished doing a four day run.

After talking to the group we had lunch. Check-in at Madison is 1:00. After lunch we drove to the parking lot for the Lower Fall of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It was a lot busier. We walked around a little and took pictures. Then we continued our adventure to Madison Campground.

We arrived there at 2:00 and check-in. We are staying here for one night in site #24. It's a pull through and very small. We setup the Minnie for the night. We have no internet service so Larry setup the Star Link. It works very well but slow. We don't have any hook ups and we have lots of trees so no solar. I probably won't play all my games while we're in Yellowstone.

After relaxing a little bit we walked down to the river. It's a great place to go fly fishing and just sit and relax. Sometimes you can see elk and bison at the river. We didn't but we saw 10 people flyfishing. 

For dinner I barbecued seasoned pork. While doing so I saw a couple of elk in the trees and pointed them our to Larry. While watching them one showed up at the campsite in front of ours. She was just eating the grass and wasn't worried about us being there. How cool is that?

After dinner we went back to the river and relaxed on a bench. Two gentlemen from Austin were sitting on the bench and we asked if we could join them. They said sure. They had been coming here for many years and told us the history the the area. They were very friendly. About 7:00 they went back to their RV to have dinner. Another gentleman came and sat on the bench with us, he was from Chicago. About 7:30 we decided to go back to the Minnie because it was getting cold. We were going to stay until sunset, which was 7:47 to see if any elk or bison will show up. We didn't see any.

On the way back to the Minnie we saw three elk walking by the trail to the river. We really didn't have to go down to the river to see them. They were right in the campground. When we got home I baked muffins in the new cups we bought. I didn't realized you had to butter the silicone cups so they stuck to the cups. They did come out tasting good.

I played the daily event of Solitaire, which was Event: Experts Only of 10 games. It took me 1 hour, 19 minutes and 23 seconds to complete, which put me in 3rd place in my group.