Yellowstone National Park

Friday August 24: Yesterday we drove from Cody, WY to Yellowstone through the east entrance. It was a pretty short drive but once you're inside the park it takes a while to get anywhere because the speed limit is 45 mph and also you are so busy looking around that you tend to go pretty slowly. Shortly after we entered the park we saw some buffalo, a coyote and female elk. At point we had to slow to a crawl because there was a buffalo walking down the middle of road in front the car ahead of us. Every time the car tried to pass it, the buffalo would speed up and cut it off so that the car had to slow back down and drive behind it. This went on for at least 10 minutes. (The picture to the right is Nika seeing her first buffalo.) Luckily, we had no trouble finding a campground that had available sites. It was called Madison and we chose it because it was right near a section of river that was open to fly fishing only. We drove around Yellowstone a lot (because dogs aren't allowed on the trails or in the water, etc.) and saw more buffalo and elk, as well as some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. We were watching for bears but didn't see any (I was just glad that we didn't see any in the campground!) This morning we went and watched Old Faithful which was really cool, and then we headed out the west entrance of the park to West Yellowstone, MT.


Now Jeff is going to talk about his Yellowstone fishing experiences: Now for the important news. There was no way that I could come to Yellowstone and not cast a fly out for some trout. I had limited time to take advantage of these world class waters. Emily and I found a spot on the Gibbon river, where Emily could paint and I could fish. It was a frustrating fishing outing filled with tangles and snags. I left the river defeated. I decided to wake up at 5:30am to wake the fish up and give it a last shot on a part of the Gibbon river right near our campsite, which is fly fishing only . It was about 40 degrees when I started fishing, the fog was thick, and the elk poop was plentiful. Using a big grass hopper fly I casted out and hooked and landed a 12 inch brown trout. A couple casts later I hooked and landed a 14 inch brown trout! This was my first time catching a brown trout ever and was a perfect addition to the many species of animals that make up the wildlife of Yellowstone.

Tonight we are staying in Ashton, ID to run a half marathon tomorrow morning (it's called the Mesa Falls Marathon) It's really cool because we get to stay in the house of a woman who lives here in Ashton and is involved with the race, which means it's free and we get to sleep in a bed, have a shower and flushing toilet, and use her wireless internet. Tomorrow we will probably go to somewhere in southern Idaho or northern Utah but we aren't planning on driving very long because we will probably be tired. Alright that is all for now!