Whew- Day 2!

Well, Mama Bears are the first to rise and the last to bed, and so it goes today as well. However, it's my penance today... I'll explain why in a minute. :)

Started off as planned... I was awake while everyone else slept, so I showered and combed out my tangled hair from yesterday. I went to the nearby truck stop and got coffee, new sunglasses, milk for cereal, and gassed the car. Came back and woke everyone up, and they ate and we packed up. We left Butte headed toward Yellowstone about 11 am. It was a beautiful drive to the West Yellowstone entrance... Top down, great temp, LOTS OF SUNSCREEN!! 

We got our annual park pass, and headed toward Old Faithful... But actually had more fun and better views at Lower Geyser Basin! Not as crowded and a variety of things to see. The Fountain Paint Pot was cool... When I get to my computer, I'll upload some videos to my YouTube channel.

 Anyhoo, we left there and headed to Old Faithful. We had AMAZING ice cream at the store and went and hung out by the geyser for a bit, but no luck for us today. 

It was 30 minutes, we couldn't really wait anymore (which turned out to be the right call... Again, later...), and it wasn't going to go for at least another 30 minutes. Eh... It's cool. So we headed back to the car and continued our drive. 

We looped around to drive alongside Yellowstone Lake... WHICH IS FREAKING HUGE... Annnnnnd that's when we figured out the random tranny slip we felt earlier was getting worse. No bueno. We saw a few bison, and then stopped by a service station for transmission fluid. And THEN realized we couldn't get the cap off to fill it :/ So, we're dealing with it tomorrow morning. 

On the rest of the drive out of the park (to the Northeast entrance) we got stopped TWICE in the Lamar River Valley so a HERD OF BISON could cross the road. Got it on video... The commentary is fantastic! But here is a pic to hold you over... 

We saw deer, antelope, bison, a rabbit, and MORE BISON. They're everywhere! Time flies, and it was 8 pm as we were heading out of the park. That's when the bad planning on my part came in. You seeeeeee, I planned the trip on google maps. This is great, but I didn't look at topography. Between Cooke City and Red Lodge is AN EFFING MOUNTAIN. 

Allow me to give you a visual.... Remember the scene in the first Lord of the Rings where the fellowship has to go over that crazy mountain pass and almost dies? The Pass of Lemloch or some other such shit??! Yes. That is what this felt like. It would have been stunning if we had A) expected it, B) didn't have a tranny that is acting an ass, and C) DIDN'T REQUIRE DRIVING AT 20 Mph... Oh yeah, and it was 40 degrees. When I started investigating this.... Turns out it was a little pass at almost 11,000 feet above sea level. Snow on the ground... Lots... Frozen alpine lakes. It was stressful, I thought Padre Bear was gonna strangle me, but we let the cubs play their games, so they were troopers, and we finally got to Red Lodge. At 10:30. Whooooooooo, was Padre Bear grumpy!!! We had starving cubs, and finally got to the hotel in Billings about 11 pm. WAAAAAAAAAY later and harder on the car than we planned :(

Cubs showered while I ran to get everyone some food, which ended up being BK. Pickings are slim for drive thru in Billings at 11:30 pm on a Monday!  

Everyone is asleep, I think I'm forgiven, so now I'm going to bed so I can check the topo for the rest of the trip over morning coffee! Lol... See y'all tomorrow!

TTFN, 

Mama Bear :)