Goodbye to Montana, as we entered Yellowstone National Park and Wyoming. We had enjoyed this, our fourth visit to Montana. By the way, it seems everyplace in the state is for sale.
Just after entering the park, we came on a line of cars stopped to see elk grazing. Ten miles later, we approached another "animal jam" but never found out what wildlife they were seeing: a man in the passenger seat of a car we passed threw his door open to get out. The door hit us, knocking us down onto the gravel shoulder. Fortunately we were not going fast or we might have been badly hurt. Sandy and I had cuts and bruises, and discovered more of them over the next couple of days. The bike frame was twisted, but only because the frame tubes needed adjusting (with our new multi-tool) . The shifter was stuck but was easily fixed.
Moving along, we took a side road out-and-back, and were rewarded by the sight of a herd of hundreds of bison.
As we rode toward Old Faithful we passed numerous geysers and steaming hot pots. Our one previous visit to Yellowstone was much more thorough; on the bike this time, we mostly kept moving. But we passed many familiar spots that triggered good memories.
The summer traffic on roads in Yellowstone is horrendous.
As we approached Old Faithful we could see it erupting from a distance. We stopped there for lunch. The next showtime for the big geyser was expected in 90 minutes, so we decided to press on. A thunderstorm sent the waiting geyser-watchers scurrying for shelter. We got under a roof overhang. The rain eased and we started on our way. The rain turned to stinging dime-sized hail for a few minutes, and we were nearly to the point of getting under a tree when it let up.
Right out of Old Faithful, we started up a major climb. We got over the continental divide at 8262' Craig Pass in good form. We didn't need any rest stops. After a slight drop, we climbed again to an unnamed higher continental divide pass. If you are counting, that is a total of three continental divides so far, putting us on the Atlantic/Gulf side.
A quick, wet downhill took us to Grant Village on the shore of Yellowstone Lake, and a simple but overpriced lodge room.
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