May 9 - United States: Gardiner, Montana (Yellowstone National Park)
We left Butte, and on the way out we stopped at Safeway to get some bagels. Then we hit the road and headed to Yellowstone, which was about 2 hours away. We passed an exit with a sign for "Clay Pottery" and so got off to check it out.
This was a little house-type place with dark brown pottery, run by a woman named Linda and her husband Ron. Linda just loved to talk and talk and talk, and we heard all about her two years in Upstate New York. It sounded like it just wasn't meant to be, between the car accidents and her mysterious stalker who once tried to break in to the house. So they moved back to Montana and they're much happier. We really did enjoy chatting with her, and we learned a lot about the pottery process they use.
The pottery was unique because it's made from a "Pre-Cambrian Grayson Shale body located near our shop. The Shales are used in their natural colors of dark chocolate brown, a lovely medium shade of brown and an ivory. These various shades are mixed together and form lovely free patterns."
We bought two mugs, to replace the tall mugs that Jeff and Amy gave us for our wedding which we loved but unfortunately broke. Because of space limitations in the car, however, we asked Linda to ship them for us.
Drive to West Yellowstone
Linda gave us some "local" directions to the west entrance to Yellowstone, which is a favorite among locals but not known by other people. So we drove on through the snowy roads and lovely scenery.
At one point, we passed two very large birds. One was on a telephone pole and the other on a fence post. We quickly realized that they were eagles, which we thought was worth a turn-around and some pictures.
Eagle on Fence Post (picture courtesy of Jon Connal)
So we continued on until we landed in West Yellowstone, the western entrance to Yellowstone National Park. West Yellowstone is a lovely little town that re-vamp itself in recent years. It's now a town filled with log-house type architecture among all its buildings, including McDonald's! Definitely very cute. But we didn't stay very long because we were anxious to get into the park.
Yellowstone National Park
Our 2002/2003 Annual Parks Pass has officially paid itself off. We bought it in Muir Woods, CA and it gives us unlimited access to all the US National Parks. Between Muir Woods, Crater Lake, Olympic National Park, Mount Rainer, and Yellowstone, not only have we broken even, but we're technically making money off it since we don't have to pay the park fees. Pretty cool how that works out for us.
So... onto the park...
Right away, we noticed the results of the 1988 fires. There are quite a few bald spots with some new growth on it. One of the flyers the ranger gave us details the benefits of fire on the park. Although they are devastating, they create new life and new opportunities.
Within no time, we started seeing the buffalo. ("Tatonka"). We found our car surrounded by them as a sizable herd walked along the road to the water. It was like being on safari all over again. We pulled over at the riverside and took some photos.
Jon and His Fuzzy Friends
A little further down the road, there were signs that we were entering an "Eagle Nesting Area". We weren't supposed to stop to take pictures, but we'd never seen a bald eagle in the wild. So we were excited enough to quickly slow down and take a picture.
Bald Eagle's Nest
So we spent the afternoon driving from the West Entrance to the North Entrance. It wasn't a short drive, but it was so nice. We saw a coyote on the side of the road, feeding off an old carcass. Pretty cool stuff. My sister would be appalled, because we had a hard time deciding whether it was a wolf or a coyote. But we had a flyer on the Gray Wolves of Yellowstone, so we figured out pretty quickly that this was a coyote.
Coyote
On our way up the North Road, we passed by a large group of vehicles on the side of the road. There were people there with high-powered lenses on their cameras and some very fancy looking equipment. We stopped to see what was going on, but all we could see were some crows scavenging something. I suppose there was a kill at some point, but we came in on the tail end of it. It was getting dark and we were hungry. So we headed through the North Gate and into Gardiner, Montana. We found a Super 8 Motel for a really good price, and settled there for the next two nights.
Helen's Corral
For dinner, we went across the street to a dive called "Helen's Corral". This was recommended by the people at the front desk at the motel as having "fantastic burgers". And that was for sure. Jon had the buffalo cheeseburger and I had the regular cheeseburger. While we waited for them to cook our dinner, we had the choice of sitting at one of the three picnic benches inside or playing one of the three video games. So we plugged some quarters into the X-Men arcade game and entertained ourselves for a little while. Then we sat and waited for a short while.
Helen is an ancient woman who's run her Corral since the late sixties. There are signs on the wall proclaiming Helen's Law, such as "An Order is Bought as Soon As It Is Ordered!!!!" and "We Do Not Accept Canadian Currency! No Exceptions!!!" and finally, "Do NOT Remove Ketchup, Salt or Pepper Shakers From Premises At Any Time!!!". All of these proclamations ended in multiple exclamation points so that we would not confuse the veracity of the statements.
We took the burgers back to the motel room and watched "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace", which really doesn't improve with age. Sadly enough. But the burgers were spectacular.