Yellowstone

Today our plans had to be changed a little due to a road closure in Yellowstone so instead of heading north we decided to head south instead and check out Old Faithful.
Yellowstone is so pretty! I can very easily see why people fall in love with the place. We didn't even get to make many of the stops and it was still stunning just driving through.
We timed it perfectly at Old Faithful. Arrived just in time to see it go off. The lodge here is HUGE! We wandered around one of the walkways to check out some of the smaller geysers and hot springs near Old Faithful. There are so many of them in this area. And that smell of sulphur that just gets in to everything! Glad we'd warned the boys that it might be a bit smelly here.
We started to head back north as we had a booking for a Western Cookout at Roosevelt Lodge that evening and of course it was on the opposite side of the park to where we were. Along the way we made a quick stop in Nez Perce picnic area to see the bison. There are so many of them here! Craig and I both thought we would be lucky to see many at all but by the end of our day and a half in Yellowstone we were a bit like "oh look....more bison..." rather than "Oh WOW! Look at the bison!"
We thought that leaving ourselves around 2 and a half hours to drive up to our cookout was more than enough time considering we only had to travel around 70 miles and most of the road ways are 45 mile per hour speed limits.
Ahhhh wrong. The first delay was a herd of bison. They held us up for about 40 minutes - mostly because people are stupid! We only

ended up getting past them because a park ranger showed up and chased them off the road into the trees (the bison, not the people though a few of them should have gone that way too!) We knew we'd be pushing it to get there in time as my horse ride was meant to be left by 4. Just when we got our hopes up that we were nearly there, came around a corner and there is traffic stopped. Craig got out to go and see if there'd been an accident, but no, it turns out that in Yellowstone - despite all the warnings not to - people just randomly stop in the middle of the road and literally jump out of their cars to see wildlife. On this occasion it was apparently a bear and cubs (commonly known as a bear jam by those that work in or frequent Yellowstone). By then I was over it as I was positive I'd be too late.
When we finally got around the traffic it turns out that the lodge was pretty much just around the corner from there and somehow the ride was late leaving so I made it JUST in time.
What a way to see Yellowstone (so my butt and my knees were hating me about half an hour into a 2 hour ride) but despite the pain it was definitely worth it! We rode up the side of a mountain, along the edge of a gorge and then out past Lost Lake which is only accessible by trail, around past the petrified tree and then down into a valley where we met the other trail ride and wagons to have dinner. We passed quite close to bison, saw a number of prong horn deer and even saw a black bear with quite a young cub not that far from us. Amazing!
The irony of seeing the black bear was that as we rode along one side of a valley, she ran up the other and crossed the road between two cars. There were other cars parked on the side of the road and people were all out staring down into the valley, clearly looking for her and actually missed her walking along the hillside, just a road width away, behind them.
Craig found it hilarious watching me get off the horse and limp over for dinner. Personally I was in so much pain I was close to tears and if I'd had the energy I would have thrown my helmet at him because he was taking photos!
The dinner was really nice though and over the time sitting there my knee decided to play nice and I managed to get back on the horse for the half hour ride back to the lodge. We saw more prong horn on the way back, more bison (including two who had let themselves into the horse pens and were chased off) and then as we were leaving there was another bear jam just up the road. Turns out this bear is well known in the area for loving to show off her cubs and sure enough we got to see "Rosie" and her three cubs too before driving back to our hotel.
Late night but a great day, that's for sure.
Things I learned today:
- Nature is stunning - whether for its beauty and/or its devastation, just amazing.
- Bison are big...and blind...and slow when they want to be.
- Sulphur is not a smell I will get use to.
- People are idiots when they see wildlife - seriously, who in their right mind jumps out of their car, leaving it running in the middle of the road, to go and get close to bears...or bison...(there's already been three gorings in Yellowstone this summer season!)
- It is a LONG time since I was last in a saddle and my body does NOT thank me for thinking 2 hours would be an ok amount of time to stay in one.
- despite some serious ouch factor, I can still be won over by the amazing sights our world has to offer us.