Day Forty-Eight: Waiting for West Yellowstone

Yellowstone was wonderful but after two nights of camping with 26 other people I was more than ready to leave. I was ready to get on my bike and pedal out of the park rapidly.

Except, we couldn't bike out of the park today. It was a matter of safety--winding, narrow roads, no shoulders, crazy RVs, and bison (bison in the midst of their mating season). The park ranger reiterated the dangers to our ride director, while I reminded him of last year's story of shuttling through herds of buffalo. So, putting riders' safety first, we decided to shuttle out of Yellowstone to our next host in West Yellowstone.

The only problem was that one group would have to hang back and wait for the second shuttle. I was in that luckily group, and  here are all the sights from those few precious hours hanging around Yellowstone:

Yellowstone national land bridge.

View of Yellowstone from the top of the land bridge.

Yellowstone canyon waterfall.

The stone after which Yellowstone is named.

After waiting til about 2:30pm, we were picked up by the van and began the final shuttle out of Yellowstone. Along the way we saw buffalo, bears and elk. I fell asleep during the van ride and woke up just in time to catch the Montana state line:

Welcome to West Yellowstone, MT!

Our host tonight, Scott W. is the local Fire Chief and has generally opened his home to all 27 of us. His wife was kind enough to fix us dinner (and as we're told breakfast tomorrow as well). I wanted to give a very special thank you to both of them for showing us true hospitality!

Tomorrow we'll be back on our bikes and heading to Sheridan, MT. I hear Montana is one of the most beautiful states and I cannot wait to see if this holds true.

Preparing to Pedal Again,

James