Day 12 Tuesday, September 18^th

Tower Fall Campground, Yellowstone National Park

                Another shower, a cup of cappuccino and a diet coke for Jerry and we were ready for whatever the day might bring, well, almost anything.

                The much talked about Helen’s Burger Coral, which supposedly serve one of the best Buffalo Burgers in the Nation, did not open till 11:00am, so we left the town of Gardiner and entered the first National Park in the USA; Yellowstone National Park. Must say the security at the gates was impeccable. The rangers there made sure the park was safe – for the bears – as he asked to see Jerry’s ID!

                Bear Jam’s I had heard of, never seen, but here they did things a little different. Here we had a PEOPLE  Jam! A flock of Elks had come to town to look at the folks there. The Elks had settled around the medical clinic in Yellowstone. Hmm, think I will just move on – the big male Elk looked rather huge s he laid there watching his harem of 14 does.

                At the other end of “town” was a huge area called Mammoth Hot Springs. Boiling water would come from the underground and as it spilled unto the crust of the earth it deposited a lot of different minerals and gases. The heavy stench of Sulfur was unmistakable. In some areas you could see strong colors of red or green. The colors are two different types of hemophilic bacteria. They live within two different temperature ranges and you can thus distinguish them easily by color alone.

The water coming out of the ground would have a most beautiful glacier blue color due to the silt. Gradually the water would change color as it got mixed with dirt on its way to the Fire river. The hot water deposited into the river made it a great place for the fly fishers. Standing in the middle of the river with their waders on, they quite enjoyed the warm water – no cold toes this time.

There was a thick layer of hot water vapor above the whole area giving it a rather mystical atmosphere. The strange rock and crystal formations, the steam belting out of multiple holes in the ground, and the sounds of the gushing and bubbling of water as the pressure built up underground, all made this a really unique and strange landscape. Your imagination could easily wander of to other planets or the world of fairy tales.

This new sound seemed a lot like the gushing and bubbling of water and yet it was different – it was not the hot springs, no, it was Jerry’s stomach! Letting us know it was time to leave to go back to Gardiner. Off we went to visit Helen’s Burger Corral. Ms Helen had started this burger restaurant in 1963 and over the years had gotten the reputation of serving one of the nation’s best buffalo burgers. Today she is retired and her family now runs the business. I put in my order for a buffalo burger – my very first buffalo burger – and yum! The burger was huge, fresh, and very very tasty. Jerry had most certainly not exaggerated this place – and he had only talked about it ever since we started planning this trip several months ago!

Full and happy we went back into Yellowstone Nat. Park. We passed the herd of Buffalos – minus one. It was a little funny as we later read that in 1905 so many buffalos had been killed by the white man that only 23 buffalos were left before the government finally put them on the endangered species list.  And we had just eaten one!

Along the way to the designated campsite for the night we saw a black bear and an Elk with a beautiful rack. Down a little gravel road a lot of people had gathered – a sure sign of wild life so of course we went that way too. A group of wolves had killed an Elk earlier in the morning and now only a lonely wolf was left still eating – must have been low on the totem pole as he got to eat last.  Not far from the wolf a herd of buffalos were grazing. We drove down to take some more photos ± a few hundreds. The buffalos apparently got tired of waiting, so they took control and totally surrounded the car.. Hey You, watch out with those big horns of yours – you might scratch the paint or rip off a door! However, it made for some great close-ups.

By fighting our way through the buffalos in best John Wayne style, although in a four-wheeled horse, we were able to find our way to the main road again. A few miles down the road we saw another black bear playing and scrounging for food on the hill sides. A ranger had stopped there to direct the traffic as animal sightings have a habit of creating slow car jams.

Setting up camp at the camp site was as easy as usually, back into the site and apply the brakes. We feasted on a Mountain House Meal, while the entertainment was brought to us by watching two older ladies trying to back in a pop-up trailer between two trees and next trying to set it up. With coffee cups in our hands we finally went over to offer our assistance. They got the pop-up camper up and we got packed up, because we were going for more adventures while the night was still young.

In the car we drove up to Mt. Washburn almost at 9000ft. The sunset never became the magnificent one that we had hoped for, so after calling friends and family goodnight we drove back down. Back on the main road several cars had pulled over so of course we had to go look too. Down a little way on the hill was a huge Grizzly bear – and Jerry had just called his family and told them we had seen everything but a Grizzly! The bear walked up toward the road so we made sure we got in the car and slowly headed down the road. But guess who just walked right up on the road and walked next to us? The bear went with us for a little while before once again disappearing into the forest.

Up to the top of Mt Washburn we drove again to get cell phone reception. We had to tell friends and family what had just happened, it was so exciting. Afterwards we certainly made sure we drove slowly in the dark back to the campsite, so not to run over any buffalos or bears, though, they were probably more like to run over us!