Yellowstone National Park

New pics uploaded! http://gallery.james2009roadtrip.com

We have camped the last 4 straight nights and have earned a night in a hotel. Tonight we’re in Great Falls, Montana.

I have been without cell phone and internet the last few days and let me tell you, I have suffered some withdrawal symptoms for sure. What can I say? I am addicted to the internet.

Anyway, the last 3 days we have spent exploring and hiking Yellowstone National Park. It is the most amazing place ever. If you haven’t been you should go! The sights are completely amazing.

We camped in Yellowstone the past 3 nights. It’s a good thing we did. The park is massive! It’s like 100 miles by 80 miles. It takes a long time to drive between points because the speed limit is 45 and because there’s a lot of things to see. There’s a huge amount of wildlife just in the road! When there’s a bear nearby expect to have massive delays as people get out there 1+ foot long camera lenses so they can count the number of hairs on the bear. The handheld camera I am using cannot compare to those several thousand dollar cameras many people I’ve seen have. We saw lots of bison, elk, bears, sheep, goats, bald eagals and other animals just all around.

We hiked a lot in Yellowstone. 6 different trails, plus at least a dozen other 1/2 mile+ walks around different geyser basins. We hiked 2 seriously strenuous hikes. One was a 1300 foot climb over 1 mile (2 miles round trip) and one was a 600 foot climb over .6 miles (2 miles round trip, .4 mile was flat). Both offered amazing views and some unexpected finds like a goat on the top of the 1300 ft climb that seemed to be just waiting for us.

All in all Yellowstone was an amazing park. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see everything, but that’s the price you pay when you don’t have unlimited amounts of time. But we saw a lot and it is definitely a place I will go back to.

The drive through Montana was pretty quick. There isn’t a whole lot of traffic in this area and the speed limits even on the state roads is 70 mph. You can cover a lot of ground at 75 mph with no one to slow you down.

Tomorrow we will get to Glacier National Park and spend a day and a half there before heading to Spokane Washington where Brian will leave me and I will continue the trip solo. Unfortunately I have caught the cold that Brian got from his plane ride. Oh well. It’ll be better in a couple of days.

There has been such an amazing amount seen so far. I can’t wait to see what’s in store next.

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