Out of Rexburg, quickly crossing over into Montana, and into West Yellowstone. It had snowed a day before or something so the roads were a little sketchy. Dry, but with patches of snow and ice here and there. The forecast for “inside the park” wasn’t faring too much better. There weren’t too many cars on the road, which helped.

“Just take your time, and watch out for cars quickly pulling over and crowds.” said the ranger at the entrance.

Yellowstone has always been a mystery to me. So much land, so much beauty. I think my all-too-quick races across the park have sort of diminished (in my head, at least) the power of the terrain I am whipping across. I need to spend a week there. Camping, walking around, watching the sun set, watching the sun rise. You know, the whole mess.

Just as i pulled into the parking lot of Old Faithful, I could see the towering plume in the distance. I parked and raced to get a view of the thing. By the time I got up to the site it was done. Just like that. Missed it again. This has happened about five times now. Awesome.

This morning’s foray was slow-going, which was nice, but of course, a little too white-knuckled for my liking. The snowstorms of the prior days left the roads pretty slick and nervewracking. One RV or gripped golden oldie bottlenecked stretch after stretch. At the halfway point of my little trek across, after bumper-to-bumper convoy action, I simply pulled over and took a little nap, and reset everything. Need it. I dozed off looking out over a big lake, with the occasional mallard duck floating by. Pretty nice little siesta.

I got out of the park around 4pm and the cloudy skies opened up to a brilliant Wyoming blue. Smooth sailing. Finally. All the way down to Cody, through Basin, down to Worland, then over to Ten Sleep, up over the mountains and down into Buffalo where I crashed for the night.

CHECK OUT “DAY 03” HERE: DDCFT-031 “Al’s Westward Hotel”