2011 WY/MT Trip – Day 3
We got an early start this morning to try to beat some of the crowds. Our first stop was Mammoth Springs near Gardiner.
Monday Travel:
Old Yellowstone Gate:
Road up to Mammoth Springs:
Mammoth Springs area:
From Mammoth Springs, we took Blacktrail Plateau Road to try to get off the beaten path some:
We continued on toward the North East entrance to the park. The road on the way to that entrance is abundant with wildlife much to my wife’s happiness. Our first encounter was watching two young bulls fighting it out in the middle of the road. We came in a little late to see several cars backing away from them as fast as they could.
Cars trying to scoot:
Lots of Buffalo and other animals:
Leaving the animals behind us, we were going to start hitting the more ‘off the beaten path’ areas around the park, starting with Lulu pass. Unfortunately this happened, again:
Yup, another key took flight. Thankfully, we were able to find it. Unfortunately this put a huge kink in our plans to stay off the beaten path. It appears that everything it too loose, and will work itself out in short order when traveling bumpy roads. Tomorrow, we’ll pass through some larger towns, and I’m crossing my fingers that I can MacGyver something up in the Home Depot parking lot to hold it all together. That is if Napa doesn’t have the parts I need (All ready tried the other parts stores in town with no luck).
So while this isn’t cool, its not the end of our trip, it just means we’ve got to stick to paved roads (boo!). Hopefully I can get something going, otherwise it’ll be a huge disappointment to drive this thing all the way out here and not be able to play with it.
Since playing off road went off the agenda today, we took to the pavement and ran up Bear Tooth Highway for a bit. This is supposedly the “most scenic highway in the US”. I don’t know how the rated it as such, but it was a pretty drive.
So that concludes today’s fun. If all works out tomorrow, I be able to rig something up to hold that caliper in place better, and we’ll get to go see some ghost towns.