Robin: September 16th

Thursday, Sep 16th, we drove back into the park from West Yellowstone to Madison Junction and then rode our bikes to Old Faithful.   The ride out was slow and we thought we were just out of shape, but it turns out it was slightly uphill most of the way and we just couldn’t tell.   In cycling lingo this is referred to as a “false flat”, but I have to tell you I have never seen a 16 mile false flat…

Along the way, we stopped at Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone’s Midway Geyser Basin. The pictures on this link  https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/geysers-hot-springs/grand-prismatic-midway-geyser-basin/ are much better than mine, but I have included a few below.





 

As we walked around the Old Faithful complex (lodging, restaurants, visitors center, gift shop, …),  I remembered that my dad bought my sister and I little stuffed black bears with a chain when we saw Old Faithful as kids.    I loved it!   But, as you would expect it was a cheap souvenir so it didn’t last long.  I looked in the gift shop and they no longer have these (maybe it is no longer PC to have a stuffed bear on a chain…), but I found an image on-line 😊.

 
 

Biking back down was much more fun as we realized we had not only been going uphill toward Old Faithful, but we had also been bucking a head wind!  Wheeee - love downhill with a tail wind, though the cross winds at times were challenging.  It felt like we would be blown off the road at times.  As we cruised down, we had an interesting experience with a “Tatonka” (for those of you who remember the “Dances with Wolves” movie reference for buffallo).   I will let Jennifer tell that story, she is a much more entertaining story teller than I am!

 

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