MT to WY

Today we are going to Yellowstone National Park, so we are on the road with a mission.  But first we need to make a stop at a booze shop while we are here in tax-free Montana to replenish the liquor cabinet, well, liquor box really!  Anyway we have a lovely time shopping at 'Spirits' in Livingstone.  This is a lovely little town, quite modern and well kept – hanging baskets once more.

So we get to Gardiner MT, the northern gateway to Yellowstone and this too is a lovely ski town, looks quite new, ie no old buildings that we could see and here we see our first elk of the day, a couple of them just stooging around, right in the town!

Once into the Park we actually cross the state line into Wyoming but there is no welcome to sign for a photo op here.  You would never know, unless you knew!

The road through the park is two lanes, one each direction, with a number of pull off areas but not everybody pulls off, we come across traffic jams where cars are just stopped in the middle of the road, well maybe some make a half-hearted attempt to pull right, but at least we know they are looking at something - so we see big horn sheep (as big as cows), massive bison, deer, teeny weeny chipmunks, squirrels and much aquatic bird life. The road is narrow, windy and hilly with some very steep descents - very scenic though.  It has rained here today, parts of the road are wet and we get half a dozen splotches on the windscreen, but it doesn’t come to much more.

Most of Yellowstone is volcanic/thermal and the literature mentions similarities to New Zealand and Iceland, but of course Yellowstone has more geysers than anybody else!  There is boiling mud and lots of steam escaping from the ground, just a tad more spread out than Rotorua and there is definitely the sulphur smell.

Just like Rotorua!!

The many camps are all full but there is space in Grant Park (340 sites) at West Thumb, the south western corner of Yellowstone Lake, which is huge!  We have a pull through site but it was very tight getting in here into a position where we could get the slides out, but we did it.  We are dry camping even though paid the same price as we usually do for full hook up but I guess this is an international wonder!  We received a docket for four showers, we are here for two days.  I will go for a walk later to check them out, but the shower block is back before the entrance to the township!

The sun is out but it is cool, definitely need the polarfleece.  We cook on the campfire tonight and follow up with toasted marshmallows, we have giant ones, they toast real good and you can peel the soft bit off and toast again….

Contact with the outside world is negligible, I have some phone bars, Kim has none, so we have no internet.