The Start of the 2020 Season in Yellowstone

6/15/2020

We sat out the COVID-19 closure at the mill, through May. On Sunday the 31^st of May we got a call from Yellowstone Foundation, asking when we could get there. Both Wyoming and Montana had insisted that the park open its gates so the states could start getting the income from the tourist industry that the park generates. Wyoming had the least amount of COVID deaths of any state and Montana’s cases were dropping, though they had been low to begin with. I told them “Four days from the day we're asked to come”. They were a bit disappointed and said they had hoped we could get there Tuesday. We don’t drive a thousand miles in one day but did drive longer than usual each day and we arrived Thursday June 4^th, after spending Monday packing up and doing all the necessary checks on our truck and trailer. We stopped in Pendelton, Oregon the first night and Declo, Idaho the second night, arriving at the park the afternoon of the third day.

Because of our delay and the short notice the company had to get stores open, we didn’t start work until Tuesday the 9^th , so we had a few days to drive around the park checking things out. The road between Canyon Village and Tower Falls will be closed all summer while they replace the roadway, which was getting torn up by traffic and is too narrow to have one way traffic during construction. That makes for a longer drive to get to the northeast corner of the park, but that’s ok with us. That’s the first place we went on Friday the 5^th.

We got caught in a bison jam up in the Tower area. They were crossing the bridge over the Yellowstone river and had traffic pretty well stopped.

They got off the road the other side of the bridge and headed east toward the Lamar Valley. We stopped to watch them for a while near a small lake less than a mile after the bridge.

From there we continued on towards the Lamar Valley. We saw a couple of sandhill cranes and some other birds near the bison. We noticed that there’s gong to be another batch of Osprey in the nest in the Lamar River Canyon

On the east side of the Lamar Valley, where Soda Butte Creek falls into the Lamar River, we saw a sow grizzly nursing her two cubs.

There was nowhere to park off the road so we had to get some quick shots of her as we rolled by the area between cars that were parked half-on, half-off, or right in the middle of the road. We drove up to Pebble Creek to turn around and on the way back through the bear zone, mom had finished feeding her cubs and was taking them up the side of the hill on the other side of the road.

Saturday the 6^th, we drove to Canyon Village and up to Mammoth. Most of the elk we’ve seen have been in the Mammoth area. We haven't seen a single buck elk yet though.

The pronghorn are looking a little like it has quarantine hair.

We can’t be sure but it looks like the lone swan on the Firehole river has found a mate.

The next day we drove around the lower loop from Old Faithful to West Thumb to Canyon and around to Madison before getting back to Old Faithful. It snowed that day.

 

On Monday the 8^th we drove back up to the Lamar Valley. This time we saw a cinnamon black bear with two well fed, 2^nd year cubs, near Elk Creek.

Out by Pebble Creek campground we saw a moose foraging for food.

Our first day of work the 9^th, we had a couple hours of training, then a full day of training on the 10^th. Thursday we shadowed an experienced worker in the only store that’s currently open in the Old Faithful area. We made all the sales while she was available to answer any questions or dig us out of problems we got into due to our unfamiliarity with the system. Friday we worked alone in that store while she and her husband went to another store to run it and the other workers went to various places to prepare to open additional stores around the park. NPS has to decide when they want the visitor’s center to open before we can open the store inside. They are supposed to have a meeting about it the 16^th.

We had the 13^th and 14^th off. We went to Bozeman Saturday, to restock our supplies. Sunday we drove to the Lamar Valley again. This time we saw another black bear.

 

We haven’t done any actual hiking yet. We’re trying to get our lungs acclimated to the 7000’ plus elevation. Soon we hope. Once things settle out, we think our schedule will be on 4 days, off 4 days, on 3 days, off 3 days. That will be alright with us.

11/2/19

Well, now that we’ve been back at Thompson’s Mills in Oregon for over a month and a half it’s about time I post something about the end of our summer trip. Sorry for the delay but we’ve been quite busy here at the mill.

From Dickinson North Dakota we drove to central Montana and stayed two nights. While there, we drove to Pompey’s Pillar August 23. There’s a small National Monument there where William Clark carved his name on the side of a rock outcropping he had climbed to survey the Yellowstone River valley in that area on his journey back from the Oregon coast.

 

Over the next couple of days we made our way to Missoula, Montana, then to Ronan, Montana. We stayed a little over a week so we wouldn’t have any trouble finding a place to stay over the Labor Day weekend. Where we were was about half way between the National Bison Reserve and Glacier National Park, so we spent some time going to both.

We didn’t see too many bison at the Bison Reserve but we did see a few black bear, close up.

 

 

That last guy was up in the top of a tree alongside the road, eating berries, about 15 feet from our truck.

Glacier National Park is always an amazing place. The first day we were there, we took the free shuttle to Logan’s Pass. School had started by that time and being that the tram drivers are usually school bus drivers working during the summer, most of them had gone back to work for the schools, so there was only one tram running, when there would normally be three, making for longer waits than usual. The second day we drove from West Glacier to St, Mary and back, in our truck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Labor Day we drove into Idaho and stayed at Farragut State Park with a host friend of ours. From there we drove to Hells Gate State Park on the Snake River. While there we drove into Hell’s Canyon for some sightseeing. There is a pullout along the road where you can take a short hike on Buffalo Eddy trail to some rocks where there are petroglyphs.

 

After a few days at Hell’s Canyon we headed to Oregon and stayed at Farewell Bend State Park for two days, then we made our way west to Clyde Holiday State Park in Mt. Vernon, Oregon. While we were there we toured the Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site in Junction City. It’s an old trading post that was bought by two Chinese gentlemen. One was a grocer the other was an herbal doctor. They moved out/died in the 1940’s and 50’s and they gave it to the city of John Day and was promptly ignored for decades. Finally, the city figured out that they owned it and began restoring it. After a period of time, the property was turned over to the state and became a state historical site. When the Chinese owners moved out, they didn’t pack up or take anything with them and all the items in the store were left where they sat the day they went out of business. It’s a great way to look back into history.

 

 

 

Finally it was on to Thompson’s Mills. When we left in July, they were just finishing up the restoration of the rooves of the silos and had started repainting the historical logos on the face of the silos. We made a couple of spot lights to show them off at night. They look really good all lit up.

 

Now it’s back to work.

8/21/19

After Rapid City, in our last post, we headed east and stopped in Mitchell, South Dakota. We stayed a couple of nights, which gave us time to visit one of Penny’s aunts and drive through Woonsocket, the town that Penny lived in from birth to 3 years old.

From there, we continued east, stopping in Welcome, Minnesota, only because it was half way to our next destination. From there we drove to Galesville, Wisconsin to see Don’s mom and some friends from Yellowstone.

Originally, we intended to continue east to Philadelphia to see our son and daughter-in-law but they are going to Ireland the week we would have been back there, so we changed plans and headed back west.

We stopped again in Welcome, Minnesota, then turned south into Iowa. Based on our experience, Iowa does not waste taxpayer money on road maintenance. They have some of the bumpiest roads we’ve ever travelled on. We stopped at a park in Omaha, Nebraska and visited another aunt and uncle of Penny’s.

From there, we returned to Mitchell, then to Belvidere and on to Rapid City, South Dakota. While in Belvidere we took another drive through the Badlands, with a side trip to the Minuteman Missile Visitor’s Center.

In Rapid City, we picked up our mail again and fortunately, Penny’s passport had arrived, so she will be able to go on her cruise to the Bahamas in October. We also took a day trip to Devil’s Tower in northeastern Wyoming. We had been there around 2004 but didn’t get any photos at that time because we left the battery to our camera in the trailer that was parked in Gillette, Wyoming. This time we made sure we had our fully charged battery.

 August 18^th we moved to Dickinson, North Dakota and spent the last couple of days touring the badlands of North Dakota, Theodore Roosevelt National Park and has some very interesting geologic formations. Penny got to see her favorite wild animal too.

They also have an area with large balls of stone called Cannonball Concretions.

 They also have a lot of other erosion formed areas that are interesting.

Tomorrow we head west into Montana. The plan is to visit Glacier National Park, but it will take a few days to get there.