Day 8 - Yellowstone Lake

Friday, 17 Sep.

Got up with the Sun and checked the batteries. Still a 2/3 charge remaining. That's good news since it means we can make it without electricity hookups for at least a day before recharging. At 8:00, I turned on our little Honda generator we bought in Illinois to charge up the batteries. It holds almost a gallon of gasoline and runs for about 5 hours on an average load (~ 4 amps). We let it run while we were out for a ranger-led hike in the morning. Batteries were fully charged when we got back. I did buy a gallon of gas to cover Saturday.


Bailey likes the smells here. I'm sure there are many she doesn't recognize, like bear and wolf. The weather is great. Lows overnight around 40 and highs in the 60's. Skies are clear.

Bison have seemed to prosper since the last time we were at Yellowstone in 1989. Haven't seen a bear or anything else yet.

Went on a ranger hike at 10:00 to Storm Point on Lake Yellowstone. Lots of great photos. Here are a few

Bruce K., the ranger checked the schedule for the rangers and told us our niece, Kristen Clark, was at the visitor's center until 1:30.

We packed a lunch and went to Mary Bay picnic area.

This is also the only place with cell phone coverage in the Lake region of the park. We were able to get our email, but I didn't have time to do more than post part of this Yellowstone blog entry.

After lunch we headed over to the Visitor's Center to see if we could find Kristin. She was there at the desk. She gave us some info on places to see in the park and we learned that she was leading a tour at 3:30 at Fishing Bridge, so we decided to go back to the trailer and do some laundry at take Bailey for a walk.

Kristen's talk was excellent. She has it down pat. In fact, there was one old guy who kept trying to trip her up about fishing, and she just kept right back at him about how she goes out after work and catches lake trout for dinner. She kew all the tricks and places, like lures, etc. I think she really surprised the guy. After, we talked with her and coordinated when we would pick her up Saturday for dinner at the Lake Hotel. Here are some photos and a video of her talk.

In the late afternoon, we went up to the Canyon district and Artist's Point on the South Rim. We also drove over to the North Rim. We had dinner at the restaurant in the Visitor's Center at Canyon Village. I had chopped bison steak and Ann Sue had prime rib (with plenty left for Bailey).