Days 9 - 11

Days 9 - 11 were Yellowstone National Park.

Start Miles 7520

End Miles 7610

Total Miles 90

One thing I have to say, coming from Florida is, it's damn cold. Our little Tika finally got to play in real snow! That was the goal. Unfortunately our goal wasn't to see low 40's, high 30's, no, but we did.

Once we left Jackson Hole, we drove through "Large Tits" (Grand Tetons), like I had stated earlier, but they weren't visible. I was so excited to see these mountains because of teaser photos from photographers such as Ansel Adams. He is amazing. Grand Tetons and Yellowstone border. A couple of miles into the south entrance to Yellowstone is a cliff along the road that is a complete drop off. I, myself, was almost too shy to look at it in fear that Bill would stray off in my wandering eyes direction. The elevation climb is steep, but you almost don't realize it until you look at the map and on a "normal" road you're at 8500 ft.

First thing we did before checking into our Canyon Lodge was to check our Old Faithful. We have been very lucky on this trip and even luckier to get to Old Faithful and have it blow 10 minutes later! The weather was awful, rainy, and so cold I wore multiple layers including a hat, rain jacket hood, and gloves. The first day had me frustrated, wet, and cold.

To make matters worse, we checked into our cabin and had no fridge or microwave (not really necessary, but a really nice added luxury), but also absolutely no hot water. The water that came out was colder than the water out of your fridge. Luckily, we had to sleep in our own single beds so we couldn't smell each other. (Yes, we also had bison chile that day). Shout out to Ryan from Wisconsin, he was the nicest waiter guy at the restaurant in the lodge.

Day two was gorgeous. The gorgeous you get when you've had a long winter and you finally see that day above 50 with the bluest skies and puffiest white clouds you haven't seen since last summer. It was still cold enough to layer, don't get me wrong, but the photos from that day were amazing. Check them out.

In our days there, we saw a plethera of bison and elk that lounged around not caring a bit for the humans around them. We saw a hunt, and it involved two wolves and one elk. We watched nature be nature, but the timing wasn't right for the kill. I was glad. We saw more birds, ducks, white geese, and unidentified flying objects than countable, and I was lucky enough to see a female moose.

As for the last day, it was back to the same old nasty weather as the past few days, minus the day before. We were on our way out, so who really put their panties in a bunch, neither of us. In the morning it was 41 degrees as we saw on the Jeeps temperature gauge, but by the end of the day I saw 97 degrees. That's a 56 degree temperature difference. My eyes are drying and burning just thinking about it.