Rangel’s Homeland
Rangel finally found a place she feels at home! Smile. Traveling to the northwest entrance of Yellowstone National Park took us through the Shoshone National Forrest. Everything in the area was huge, the mountains, the glaciers, the lakes, and the trees. 
It was late by the time we arrived in Cook City and decided to stay there rather than try to make it to Gardner. After checking in to a hotel, we took a short hike to Trout Lake.
After the hike we headed West to the Lamar River Valley, a wide valley with a river running through the middle. We parked alongside the road overlooking a herd of Bison (Buffalo). 
I cooked up spinach and a black bean and cheese quesadilla as the Bison talked to us in their cool but odd gurgling roars and grunts.
We ate, Rangel had a hot chocolate and I was cleaning up. “Dad, is that a BEAR?” Rangel asked in an excited, but somewhat scared tone. Sure enough, she had just spotted a grizzly bear quietly moving across the ridge in front of us from our left to our right. Here is a picture of the ridge.
- Lamar River Valley Dinner
At first I said “naw, that’s just a bison away from the heard” but then it moved and I fumbled for a flashlight. I lit up the bear and we saw his eyes staring right back at us (it was dark so we couldn’t tell if he was looking at us for our leftovers or as dessert). After a moment he turned and disappeared over the ridge. With a curt “we will clean up later” I threw the rest of the dishes in the back of the Beast and we jumped in comforted by the safety of the vehicle. It was quite dark as we returned to our hotel and Rangel was bouncing out of her seat talking about the bear when she said “STOP… FOX… I MEAN WOLF!” Sure enough, a rare large black and silver wolf was jogging down the road. A pack had been reintroduced into the park in 1995 and there are about 2o0 now. That’s 200 in 2.2 million acres. It looked the wolf from the Little Red Riding Hood story, large sharp teeth and all. We turned around and saw him cross the road to return to his den after a day of hunting in the valley. We had been in the park less than three hours and had seen two of the rarest animals in the park. I know, unbelievable.
I woke Rangel up early the next day, to optimize the opportunity to see wildlife. She was unusually cooperative considering our success the prior night. We were rewarded with a sighting of a family of Kestrel Falcons eating a bird just past the Lamar River Valley. Below them was a Proghorn, just eating away oblivious to the chaos on the street behind him. Then we saw a few other cars parked along side the road and stopped and we saw a Black Bear and her cub! It was cute watching the cub poke his head out of the tall grass to locate his chubby mom.
We continued through the park getting stuck in a Bison traffic jam.
We drove to the top of Washburn Mountain and had lunch overlooking the southeastern portion of the park. On the way we saw two skinny and skidish coyotes running along side the road.
We stopped at the Roosevelt Lodge and rode horses in a large open valley. Rachel rode Peter and Shrek carried me.
The ride went smoothly until Shrek got a little to close to Peter’s behind and Peter bucked and tried to kick Shrek. Rangel stayed on and calmed Peter down and everyone was unharmed, except for my sore toe where Peter’s rear shoe hit me. Thanks Maggie.
We arrived in Gardner with 20 minutes to grab a key chain and check in for our overnight rafting trip down the Yellowstone River. Check out the lazy bums on the Gardner High School football field.
We met our guide Joe with Flying Pig Adventures, packed a quick overnight bag and the three of us headed down the stairs to the river. We floated for a couple of hours until we reached our campsite. Rangel and I had a mean game of tether-ball and slept in a Teepee! Pretty comfortable overall. 
The next morning we set off again for the remainder of our 18 mile trip. We saw Osprey, a Blue Heron and a 3-4 foot snake swimming next to us. Rangel played rafting roulette, tug of war and ride the bull with Joe, each time ending up swimming in the river to her delight.
We said good-bye to Joe and headed into the park to soak our sore bodies in the boiling river. Not two minutes into park we saw a family of big horn sheep on top of a ridge above the road. 
We set up camp at the Mammoth Springs campground and headed back to the springs. We soaked for two hours in hot springs mixed with river water in the cold rain moving from hot spring water to cold river water in seconds. Again, we have to thank Maggie for this very special memory.
Not excited about fixing dinner in the rain, we drove back to Gardner to have pizza and watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. GO USA!
The next day we had a quick scrambled egg breakfast and checked out a few animals on our way. 
Our first stop was a short hike down Uncle Tom’s trail to the bottom of Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon.
Over the course of the day we saw, heard and smelled mudpits, caldrons and geysers, including the world famous “Old Faithful” which didn’t disappoint.
At last our time was up and we headed out the South entrance for a beautiful drive through the Grand Teton National Park. Goodbye Yellowstone.
Mixed emotions!
e to be clean again. We stopped at a grocery store and re-stocked our supplies before heading west. You can never have enough hot chocolate!
