Man, Motorcycle, Mountains Day 8

Man, Motorcycle, Mountains

Day 8 -- Yellowstone

I slept good in the tent.  It was a cold 43 degrees at 5am when I got up and broke camp.  Takes a while to get loaded when the camping gear is involved, didn't leave unti 630.  But I did wake everyone else up when I left!  A quick 2 miles south to town where McDonalds was calling my name!  After breakfast and coffee, 2 miles east and I was in Yellowstone, a 276 mile day ahead of me.

It was foggy as I made my way through the park keeping an eye out for wildlife on the roads.

Experienced a traffic delay due to a whole heard of bison walking down the road.  Makes you just a little nervous when they pass you and you aren't inside a car.

The fog burned off revealing sights like this one in the northern section of the park.  There were a lot of other visitors in the park, but lucky for the motorcyclists, we don't have to stop so often to get out and see something, we can allready see it from our bikes. I don't like crowds.

This is me having a mountain-top experience.  I'll tell you later about my experience in the valley.

Saw a lot of bubbling, hot springs, smelling of sulfer and leaving mineral deposits behind.

And bubbling, hot mud pits.

I went to Old Faithful, but you wouldn't believe the cars and people there.  I stayed about 5 minutes and left.  Below is a picture of another geyser.

Next, I headed south towards the Tetons and the town of Jackson.  Had a nice trail lunch of jerky, corn nuts, and cherry licorice.  My trip, my choice.

My check engine light and battery light came on, and I took a wrong turn driving 15 miles through a construction zone before realizing I needed to turn around and go back through it.  It was all dirt road with either dust, or mud if the water truck had gone by recently.  Fun!

I got into Jackson and my motorcycle quite running.  But wait, I'm right across the street from Jackson Hole Harley Davidson.  Then I find out they just sell clothes.  I'm hot, tired, dirty, and stuck on the side of a busy road with no clue what to do.  This is my valley experience.  I man offers me a jump start, the bike runs, then dies again in 5 minutes. It takes about 15 min to unload and reload the gear so you can get to the battery under the seat. So, I push it to the closest motel, pay a gouged price for a room, and think about what to do all night.  Got my laundry done though.  Tune in for Day 9 to see what happens next.