Y E L L O W S T O N E - D A Y # 2
Friday, August 6, 2004

My goal for today is to see all of Yellowstone's remaining major sights. Up to this point, I have seen only 2 of the 7 sights, Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Geyser Basin. Those that remain included 1) Fountain Paint Pot Area, 2) Old Faithful Area, 3) West Thumb Geyser Basin, 4) Mud Volcano, 5) Canyon Area. It is an aggressive plan so I take great care in plotting my route to eliminate all unnecessary driving.

My route starts from the Norris Campground and takes me on a counter-clockwise spin around the park. Fast forward to day's end, I run out of daylight and fail to visit the Canyon Area, that will have to wait until tomorrow. The dogleg up and out of the park to Gardiner, MT is taken to avoid paying the $14 campsite fee. Gardiner isn't that far of a drive plus I have to be up in that part of the park anyway for the two hikes I've planned for tomorrow.

Rewinding back to the morning.

While getting ready I accidentially break my camping mirror. Ooops, does that mean I'll have 7 years of bad luck? If I had my druthers, I'd just do without mirrors all together, they are such a hassle. That got me to thinking, would the world be a better place if people didn't use mirrors so much?

Click here for more detail on my mirror revelation.

My day starts with sharing my breakfast with a chipmunk. I throw a piece of dried fruit out the van's double doors and it runs up, sniffs it, grabs it, then runs off. He repeats this cycle over and over. I try to see where he is going but he disappears over a hill. He must be building his food cache somewhere. I probably shouldn't feed him but it is only dried fruit, it's not like it's a candy bar or crack cocaine. A chipmunk is fast enough as it is. A chipmunk on cocaine? Certainly not a good idea.