Today's plan: hang in Bozeman and casually make our way to Yellowstone via the North Entrance in Gardiner. It was a mellow morning with the Brandons - just what we needed - some down time.
Before we left we took the kids for the classic "hike up the 'M'". It doesn't look far, or difficult as Sierra confirmed by stating at the bottom: "That doesn't look far, or difficult." The reality - for flatlanders - is this is a great little butt-kicker of a hike and 1/2 way up the 1.5 mile hike they started to feel the altitude (over 5,000') and the intensity of the sun. *Sidenote - I've always wondered why we can be 100's of 1000's of miles from the sun and yet an increase of just a few 1000 feet and we're torched.
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| Making her way up the "M" |
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| Wildflowers and a Flowergirls |
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| Sweaty - but they made it |
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| The "M" - noticeably bigger up close |
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| Hanging out with their buds Grace & Sam |
Packing up is always therapeutic for me as I can find order in the car once again. But saying goodbye is never easy.
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| Serious buds |
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| We'll get over that this is a gross photo of me because it's a cute one of Dana. Thank you D, for having us. Love you & our kids making memories! |
As we approached Gardiner, the main street was lined with cars - very strange for such a small town. But then we started to see horse trailers and I was pumped.... we'd just totally lucked out and stumbled upon a super legit rodeo. Cowboys were riding their horses practicing their lasso. (Apologies to my western friends who actually live this lifestyle if I butcher the experience with incorrect terminology. I couldn't bring myself to say "trot" - because do cowboys/girls trot? Or do they do something way cooler?) I was trying to find a parking spot (the road was packed for a mile - rodeos are a big deal here. At home there are football stadiums in every town, here there are rodeo fairgrounds in every town).... meanwhile the girls had no idea what a rodeo even was. I knew we couldn't stay long so we pilfered a spot at the motel next door and walked to the entrance - $10/each. While I wanted to sit for a while and pretend this was my existence, I couldn't justify the $30 for 10 minutes, so we tried to steal some views over the fence.
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| I mean REALLY! |
I was stoked to be so lucky as to find a rodeo. I'll never forget my 1st rodeo in college - it was the real deal - the stadium was packed - some kind of championship or something, I figured. Nope. This is how most rodeos are attended. What really made me realize this is a full on lifestyle that people eat/breath/love was when I saw kids under the auditorium staging, like they would at a soccer or lacrosse game, playing their own game, instead these kids were roping each other. What's really pretty cool about being a cowboy/girls, ok, cowperson, is that it's a full family existence. There were father/son roping duos, plenty of ladies participating, even the real little kids participated during breaks by catching animals, the whole family shows up to support each other. Talk about family values. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I've wanted to live this lifestyle once or twice.
Onward to Yellowstone. Oh. Wait. What's that you say? Every camp site is full in the park? Hmmmmm, plan B (ha, I wish I could say it was a plan, let's just go with happenstance) was finding a really cool National Forest campground (Eagle Creek) 1 mile up in the foothills outside the park. The host Robert was a super cool cat and said he tries to never turn anyone away. Pretty close to guaranteed camping.
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| Our sweet little spot at Eagle Creek just outside Yellowstone. Beautiful. |
Lesson learned today - don't expect open sites in a national park on the weekend. I wish I could reserve (well, you can) but I don't know what my days will look like. Going with the flow certainly has it's advantages and disadvantages. Should make staying in a popular place like Yosemite interesting. Another lesson learned (gratitude to my friend Dana for reminding me) from the book Wild. REI has a 12-month return policy - no questions asked. Got a new bike rack today! Wohoooo! I can access the tail gate!!!
(Did I say there would be no story today?)
Footnote: my nails are taking a beating.
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