Yellowstone in May

With S in town, it seemed only right to head over to the SUPER VOLCANO to see the sights. Last summer, we had a brief day and a half there, and there is nothing like tourists in a National Park in August to make you hate humanity. So, May seemed perfect for us. Fewer tourists, not too hot, new baby animals, etc. etc.

You can agree with that logic, right?

We set aside 3 nights and 4 days to make the trip out, hike, and relax in the trailer, sans kitties. It was such a weird experience, I kept going to the back of the car to let them out for a potty break. No cats in here.

What I didn't really think about, was despite the beautiful weather Billings, MT is getting, a piddly 3000 feet closer to the sea than Yellowstone, was that much of the park is still under snow. After we had already made our non-refundable deposit on our camp site, the operator casually mentions that the entrance we were planning on taking had been closed for a week, due to an avalanche. The other nearest entrance was still closed for the season, as the plows don't finish clearing the roads till June (that pass is a beautiful, but white-knuckled pass up to 12000 feet). No problem, right?

Did I mention my trailer service guy told me my water heater had a crack? And I told him, "I never use it anyway. Just reroute the pipes around it."

There was more snow in the south end of the park (where our campsite was) than in the north end. Most of it was very reasonable in temperature, like California snow. Chilly, but still in the high 40s so who cares? This image (above with Alice's new license plate!) was the coldest I've been taking a photograph. The wind was howlingly aggressive and unpleasant.

So you can appreciate how much snow there was in many places, and imagine how much snow there was a few months ago, here is a drift we took pictures next to. Apparently, it collapsed and closed the road a few hours later.

Another unexpected bonus... BABY ANIMALS!! They were all over the place. Baby BEARS and baby BUFFALOS, and baby BIRDS. The negative of BABY ANIMALS is that there are MAMA ANIMALS out too. Most of the trails we marked in our new "Easy Day Hikes of Yellowstone" book were closed due to hungry BEARS.

Yes, I photoshopped this. I'm not dumb.

The first morning, we awoke to a 40 degree trailer. The water came out of the faucet at a loving 32 degrees. It was inspiring to get dressed and on the road quickly. The next morning, it was 37 degrees in the trailer. I jumped out of bed, lit the stove under two kettles, and got back in bed until the heat from the stove warmed the trailer into the 50s. It happens faster than you would think. Which is why summer cooking is unpleasant!

The third night, I decided we should splurge and I asked S to figure out my only-used-once furnace. Try as we might, it never would start. No heat at all. Luckily, the next morning was 43 degrees inside, and by then, we had a rhythm going with the stove and it practically felt comfortable to get up and start the coffee. Creepy how fast you could turn into an Eskimo (in climate, not culture).

I made millions of pictures and am in the process of sorting through them. More soon.