Day 28: Yellowstone National Park to West Yellowstone, MT
Knowing we had so little distance to cover, we slept in until 8 or so and then took our time packing up. In fact, we took a long, long time. But it was okay since nobody was in a rush. But there was a border race to get to Montana so there was one big highlight.
When we were finally ready, most of the group lined up and had a countdown. I was still collecting trash around the campsite so I missed it, but I figured the border was about 14 miles away so I'd catch enough people to come in a top ten finish. I took off about a minute or two later and picked up to a good pace. Unfortunately, or fortunately, there were quite a few historical signs so I'd see someone, maybe even pass them up, but then I'd pull over and check stuff out. After an hour or so of doing this I came up on the group and stopped at the "Entering Montana" sign where the group was staying, right at tenth place. The sign was just a little wood post with a slat of wood with the lettering on it about a mile from the park entrance.
About five minutes later, BJ and Stephen come screaming by saying that wasn't the right sign. They were going so fast that that's all they got out and everyone was confused. But we got on out bikes since BJ had been into town the day before so we figured he would know. We all made it shortly thereafter out of the park and just outside the exit was a much larger "Welcome to Montana" sign. But the state line was back in the park, this sign was in front of a store and a chain link fence, since apparently the state wasn't allowed to put a nice sign in the park.
BJ and Stephen claimed that they won, but nobody gave them any recognition since, first, the state line was in the park and, second, they knew about the bigger sign and intentionally didn't tell anybody so that they could would win by trickery. They tried to claim they'd split the glory, but it was only in their minds that they had any glory. Ha!
We all took the pictures and had a good time at the bigger sign. And then the attention turned to what we were going to do for food and housing for the night. With 19 people around it's hard to make sure everything runs smoothly and that it's all organized. The next few hours were a demonstration of what not to do. Some people thought we were staying at a particluar campground and took off before it was confirmed. The rest of us went to a park to set up a meeting point, but then nobody stayed around for very long before taking off to take care of other things. Some went to find a church to stay in, others looked for food.
In the end, we found a forest park campsite free to the public on a first come, first serve basis. The only drawback was that it was about ten miles in the wrong direction, but free is for me so no worries. Instead of going to camp, though, we decided to spend some time in the city pursuing our own directions. Being a small town, we pretty much took it over and everywhere we went we saw more of us biking around or eating on a corner. The people in town noticed as well and I was stopped quite a few times to answer questions from the curious.
Some of the riders had found a discount at a local outdoor burger restuarant. The twist was that they offered bison and elk burgers. BJ and I decided to order one of them and then share with the other. The general consensus from the team was that bison was better, but elk was still tasty. I also ordered a large shake so once again was feeling quite good. I’ve probably eaten three times more ice cream on this journey than I’ve had all year long.
After lunch, Nick Weaver and I went in search of a hammock and a tent. We didn’t find either of them, but we did get to go into a few shops. At the last shop we also found some of the team sitting at a coffee bar. Some casual conversation about the next day’s route and then I made my way across the street to watch the I-MAX presentation of Yellowstone. The movie was advertised as giving some history of the park so I was in.
While I was waiting for the movie to start, I came across four young men who were in spandex and jerseys. I talked with them for a while and it turned out that they were also touring the country on the bike. They had just graduated from college and wanted to do something big. So being from the east coast they flew to the west coast and were biking home with the wind. They went unsupported, though, and carried everything on their bikes, which is pretty amazing. In a couple cases they had stopped at homes and asked if they could stay in their front yards.
Walked into the theater and quite a few of the team soon came in. Although it wasn’t the most entertaining movie I’ve ever seen, I enjoyed the historical perspective. Yes, the acting was pretty cheesy, but oh well.
After the movie, we waited for the van to pick us up. When it came, Mallory was all excited about the campsite. It had rained there and when the clouds broke a rainbow shot across the sky. Not only one full rainbow, but several of them stacked on top of each other. I later saw the picture that Channing took and I was impressed. The campsite was right on the lake so the effect was pretty magnificent.
We ate some pasta for dinner and stood at the lapping water, just looking out on the scene. The weather was just about right and with the big lake filling the big, forested hills it was good times for all.
We had a short meeting to cover some small items of business, but mostly we just took it easy around the campfire. The biggest concern we have with camping is attracting bears so this was a common topic of conversation. We went to bed after making sure we cleaned the camp up well and put the fire out, ready to stay in a church again the next night.