Our Last Days in Yellowstone…For Now.

 

June 5, was going to be our last day in Yellowstone on this visit. For those that know me, as difficult as it may be to believe, Kim was tired of my humor on this day. She sent me away to use the last day of my fishing license and more importantly to leave her alone to read.

I went off to fill a propane tank in Gardiner and then back out into the park. I did not want to cross that construction again, so I found a quiet place along the Gardiner River near Indian Creek Campground. It was beautiful. The river meandered through the valley surrounded by elders. The bison had beat in a good path along the river and I just slowly walked along and casted when there looked like a good pocket that could hold fish. I did not see any fish rising, so this was just hope fishing. The fish did not bother me on this overcast day. I really did not care. 

My regular readers know I love to capture reflections. This was a good one.

I know Kim was needing some time alone and I guess so was I. I spent three hours just walking along this river thinking about how lucky I am.

The lightning strikes were getting close, so I decided it was time to leave. As I walked back to the truck, I found this beautiful meadow of wildflowers. I had to sit and admire them for a while.

As I was putting things back in the truck, a car stopped with 4 20 something's. They thought they had seen a moose. The two girls ran down the road to see if they could get a look. The guys slowly followed. It looked like they had been doing this all day and the enthusiasm of the girls was wearing them out. I found it humorous. They never saw the moose.

I made another stop at Sheepeater Cliff.

It was an interesting formation.

Some Yellow Bellied Marmots were playing in the rocks.

When I arrived home, we both were better off from the alone time. We decided that we would move on the next day. It was a Saturday which is a bad travel day, but the campground we were going to, showed to be empty on their web site.

On June 6th we got going about our usual time of around 10:30 and by 11 we were ready to leave. I took a couple shots of the campsite. It was OK, but with the very busy road about 50 feet away it was a bit much. At least there was not traffic at night.

We headed down the very steep canyon to Gardiner. We crossed into Montana and saw this sign:

We drove about 150 miles to the East shore of Canyon Ferry Reservoir. We arrived at Hellgate campground on a hot summer day on a Saturday afternoon…what were we thinking? The good news is that we found a site that was actually very nice.

 

The site next to us was an ADA site and stayed vacant while we were there. It was hot, almost 90 degrees, so we got the boat out and went for a paddle. We both jumped out of the boat into the cool water. We wanted to see if we could get back in. We did, and that gives us more confidence when we have to get back in quickly because of alligators or very cold water.

We finished the day, by sitting in our lounge chairs watching the sun set, and set and set. It was close to 10PM before it was dark.

 

We are only 30 miles to Helena, the capitol city of Montana. We need to stock up on supplies and go to church tomorrow. I wonder what we will find in Helena. I hear tell that there is a Cathedral there.