The exemplary behaviour the night before meant uninterrupted sleep and a timely awakening. Bill was already up, packed and somehow had found breakfast, although, notably, not for me unlike my WSO in Nova Scotia who always made sure I had a breaky sammich! (Thankx BuBu!).

Our mo'tel was literally 1 mile from the gate to Yellowstone Park so we were in the queue in a few minutes. The cost was $25 to exit the west park gate by Old Faithful, or $40 to exit the south gate which included driving through the Grand Teton Park as well.

For some reason I reverted back to my 'El Cheapo' days and selected the $25 version. I'm not really on a budget any more, although I like to keep things in reason, and our friend Bill is certainly not on a budget (he owns 3 homes fer chrissakes!). We continued on with the plan of paying the additional $15 at the Teton gates.

The very fact that the public has to pay to drive Yellowstone kinda ****** me off. This WikiPedia article talks about the super volcano that erupted 640 000 years ago and shot 240 cubic miles of ejecta into the atmosphere, blanketing North America in 5 feet of ash and the world in 1 foot; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowsto ne_Caldera

The super volcano that makes up most of the park will erupt again one soon, it is overdue and will be if not an extinction level event, will definitely be a major inconvenience. They should be paying me $40 bucks for all that shovelling I will need to do during the nuclear winter the ash causes!

The road was quite spectacular, shoulderless, bendy and twisty with elevation changes and in most excellent condition. Also lightly traffic'ed, at least at first. What made it not so nice was the ridiculous 25 MPH speed limit they had assigned most of it. As the lead bike I set the running pace, it was a struggle to keep it to 15 MPH over any posted limit, although when the switchbacks said 20, or 15 MPH they meant it!

Sprinkle a little construction into the mix and it makes for a frustrating day with the first 3 hours covering less than 100 kms. Traffic increased throughout the day but so did the speed limit as we put some distance between us and the main part of the park. We never did find that Grand Teton gate or pay our extra $15 bucks though.

There is a fascinating article about how the re-introduction of wolves into YS balanced the ecosystem so well it even affected the local vegetation. It is a little known fact that the wolves re-introduced to the Park came from Alberta which has a robust and healthy wolf population. You can read it here: http://www.yellowstonepark.com/2011/06/ wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/< br>
Also Alberta bred and born are the Bison that are scattered through the park. Almost all Bison herds around the world can trace their lineage to the Elk Island Park Bison as globally they were hunted to the brink of extinction everywhere but in our province.

There is a spot where the buffaloes were grazing around a geo-thermal pool, with steam rising all around. This is about 100 yards from the road on the right, while on the left is a huge buck regaling in his mane and horns and posing for the literally 100's of happy snappers and selfie takers.



It was mind boggling how people react to wildlife of any kind in the park. In the case of this herd people were literally abandoning their cars in the middle of the road leaving the doors open and running right up to this massive creature to take his picture. Luckily the much denser traffic was coming from the other direction as the resulting pile up was at least a kilometer long.

We saw it again and again where people would take crazy risks to photograph anything that moved. My reasoning is that the road was paved without shoulders to discourage stopping and interacting with the fauna, but that didn't stop people from locking up the binders at any time, in the middle of the road, when a squirrel poked his head up.

We stayed on Hwy 89 for the whole day, at one point the road pops into Idaho for a few minutes, then back into Wyoming. We drove almost the full height of Wyoming, turning onto hwy 30 briefly to take us to the last bastion of civilization in the state, they town of Kemmerer, which has, by our count, at least one too many 'er's.

The problem we had the night before in Gardiner, that is too busy, was the opposite tonight, the town was too slow, there was nothing open. We asked the nice lady at the front desk where we could get a beer and a burger and she came up empty. I asked if there was taxi service in the area and I got a number. I called the cab and asked the same question, then booked a car for 30 minutes later. Once a Concierge, always a Concierge!

A stinky mini van picked us up at the appointed time and Frannie took us to the, wait for it, Bowling Alley! She had called ahead to make sure the grill was on! Now that is service. The fare was $10 bucks which may have been a little steep but it included booking the BA kitchen for us so it was worth it!

We had the place to ourselves for the first hour and the entertainment was watching the husband and wife team playfully bicker back and forth while they prepared our burgers and chips. Gradually the place filled up with their kids and even the manager. Things started to get a bit rowdy so it was time to go home. Frannie picked us up and returned us the the mo'tel.

We had a nightcap, and shot a video. I apologize for the poor quality due to incorrect lighting.



Day 4
Gardiner, MT to Kemmerer, WY
503 kms