Hey Folks,

Yellowstone at last. It took us a while, and some expert driving (from yours truly, no less!), but I finally managed to land my parents in Yellowstone.Yellowstone National Park is the oldest national park in the US, and my parents are quite possibly the oldest parents in the US; my dad is 387 and mum turns 373 in a few days. They do pretty well for their age, but they’re definitely slowing down a little. I find after hiking 18 or 19 miles one or the other of them start to lag, and they both begin to show clear signs of fatigue on the return. 🙂

I’m kidding – they’re not really that old – not even in dog years. They’re kicking pretty well, and enjoying this trip through the Rockies. The weather has been sweet, cold clear nights (mostly) and reasonable days. The one snowy cold day we did have was spent most of it on the road, traveling south from Glacier. Today we drove from near Livingston over to Bozeman, where I had to drop a backpack off for some repairs – of course, not thinking about the days of the week until too late, mum mentioned it being Sunday. Sure enough Mystery Ranch packs weren’t open, so I have to return another day. We came back thru Livingston, and down thru Gardiner, in to Yellowstone via Mammoth. We drove around a little, mum saw her first wild bison, and we’re camped down at Madison Junction. This campground is OK, but a little tight, with to much room between sites – unfortunately most of the campsites are closed this time of year. I wish they kept a couple of primitive campgrounds open, but alas, such is not to be. We’re here with the masses at Madison.

I think tomorrow we’ll head down the Madison, look for some elk, run out to West Yellowstone, and up to Bozeman so I can get my pack dropped off and get that errand out of the way. Then we’ll spend a few days tooling around this park, then wander down to the Tetons for a couple of days, and then hit the road for Seattle. I say goodbye to my parents, and they head south to Eugene and I fly back to Anchorage to settle down for the winter – we’ll see how that goes.

Until then, well continue to hope for good weather, and enjoy spending time together in this incredible place called the Rockies.

Cheers

Carl

PS – the photo was taken on Kings Hill Summit, in the Lewis and Clark National Forest, Montana, on route to Yellowstone. Thanks.