Trip Two Day 9: 17 miles 317 miles total.
The campground office opens at 7, I wake up about 6:45 and scrupulously clean up all my odds and ends not knowing what sort of reception I’m gonna get. I needn’t have worried, turns out long distance cyclists are a protected species in Yellowstone. The summer staff there comes from all over, the place is packed with tourists, good and bad. But everyone sees a loaded-up cyclist and they know we have come hundreds, maybe thousands of miles.
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I’m packing up and a big tall bearded German sounding guy, could be Dolf Lundgren’s brother asks me if that’s my bike, grins broadly, impressed. A quiet older gentleman shows up, opens up the office, invites me in, makes me a cup of coffee. Turns out he’s a retired Cop from San Antonio. Retired Cops make excellent Campground Hosts. Tho I ain’t gonna spend the night at the campground he writes me out a free shower pass for the big shower/laundromat building down the road. In the laundromat the guys there show me where I can charge my stuff and are asking me questions about the trip. Not far away there’s a high dollar cabin rental place and a nice restaurant, same thing, Interested people asking questions.
I had already been one day in Yellowstone, the plan was to stay there that second day, head out to Cody the day after. Originally on that second day I had been planning to ride 37 miles to a place called Canyon and camp there. The problem was from there it would be a 96 mile ride to Cody. I was figuring Cody would be a two day trip involving a camp out in grizzly country anyway but I opted to camp at Yellowstone Lake Marina instead which was only 84 miles to Cody.
No phone service no internet, I had no way of gathering info about the route, the weather or anything else, it was like the old days before computers. With respect to bears, bear spray is like a fashion accessory in Yellowstone, but the people that live and work there said the paranoia is WAY overblown. I did learn that in some places in Yellowstone groups of riders actually run the bears off on horseback.
Easy day; around friggin huge Yellowstone Lake, the same one that gets tilted by the shifting Caldera beneath. The lake is fringed with little steaming bubbling hot springs, reminders that you’re on the stove top.
I get to thecampground and who’s there? Sacre Bleu! The same French family from the KOA from yesterday morning. We sit and mangle French and English for a couple of hours. I get to eat well 😎
