This morning we woke up and the weather had cleared. It was a little cold at first, so we put on our rainsuits to keep warm and headed off to our first real visit to Yellowstone National Park. You may recall that we actually did pass through the park a couple of days ago, but we were preoccupied with dodging raindrops and hailstones to pay much attention to the scenery. Cody lies about 50 miles to the east of the Yellowstone East Entrance, but US-14/16/20 west of Cody doesn't actually go anywhere except the park, so traffic was light. Along those 50 miles lies the Yellowstone East Canyon. This is one of those canyons carved out by a river and I must say the scenery is spectacular. The road is hilly and twisty, but the curves are slow enough that you can keep up your speed. This makes for a very relaxing motorcycle ride.
     Yellowstone National Park is HUGE! It's very easy to drive 100 miles without leaving the park . Yellowstone has 5 entrances, North, South, East, West, and North-East. It is mostly made up of 2 loops, one above each other, so today we tackled the lower loop, and tomorrow we will tackle the upper loop.
     The southeast corner between the East and South Entrances is mostly made up of Yellowstone Lake. The road passes around the lake, which was extremely calm this morning as opposed to the whitecaps of a couple of days ago. While we were taking in the scenery around the lake, and stopping to take a few pictures, we noticed a bunch of cars pulled off the road haphazardly. We already figured out on our last trip - that means there is wildlife present. This morning it meant a momma black bear with her two cubs wandering along in the woods. I wish I had the time to get the good camera with the telephoto lens, but I had to snap the picture with the pocket camera so the bear is far away.
     Once we reached the South Entrance, we continued along the southwest corner of the loop between the South and West Entrances . This is the geyser corner of the park with the first major stop being the Old Faithful Visitors Center We got there about 11:30, and the next expected eruption from Old Faithful was expected at 12:33 - it typically erupts about every 90 minutes. That gave us an hour to walk around and check the place out. We also got our passports stamped and watched the obligatory 20 minute movie. The crowd was beginning to form by the time we headed out for the viewing, but there was no trouble getting an unobstructed view. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes of the predicted time, Old Faithful erupted. It shot well over 100 feet into the air, and kept going for 3-5 minutes. It was a great show!
     When the Old faithful show was over, we hiked around the geyser field nearby. There were many different types of geysers and bubbling pools and many different colors. The hike was about a mile and was well worth the time. By the time we got back on the road it was about 2:00 and we weren't even halfway through the loop . Between Old Faithful and the West Entrance, there were several more geyser fields, so we stopped at a few and took some pictures, but really didn't have the time to do any extensive hiking.
     As we headed up the northwest section of loop road between the West and North Entrances, we followed along the path of the Gibbon River. This was obviously a good fishing river, because everywhere we looked, someone had pulled off to the side of the road, waded into the shallow river, and started casting. It was really something to see. As we progressed along the river, we came upon a sign for Gibbons Falls. It was an 84 foot waterfall in a canyon secton of the Gibbon River. The view was spectacular!
     As we continued across the center of the loop between the North and East Entrances, we came across a section called Canyon Village. That is supposed to be the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and also includes a couple of waterfalls. We were running out of time and decided to make the Canyon Village our first stop on tomorrow's visit . The cloud were rolling in, and the temperature was dropping, so we put on our wet suits to keep warm, and just in case it would rain. So we followed the rode along the Yellowstone River back to the East Entrance to complete today's loop.
     The weather was holding out - just a couple of drops. As we headed for the East Entrance, we again found a bunch of cars parked haphazardly along the side of the road. This time it was a large male and a female elk resting on the side of the road. This time I had the sense to get out the good camera with the telephoto lens and captured a couple of great pictures.
     This time the climb over the mountain and back down to the East Entrance was much more enjoyable than before. When coming into the park this morning, it was just a climb up a mountain road. But the ride back out of the park, the drop from 8500 ft to 5000 ft was much more spectacular. There was mountainside on your left, and nothing beyond the guardrail on the right, except a very deep valley below . Of course this was also a 7-10% downward grade for about 20 miles, so it was mostly 4th or 3rd gear to prevent over-using the brakes. A little scary at times, but mostly just exhilarating.
     As we exited the park and began the 50 mile ride back to the hotel through the Yellowstone East Canyon, we stopped to take several pictures. But the enormity of the outcroppings and mountains all around us were impossible to capture in a picture. Also by the time we returned to 5000 ft, the storm cloud had passed and the temperature had climbed back to 77 degrees. So the rainsuits came back off again.
     We decided that it was getting late - about 6:00 - so we would skip the hotel and head right out to dinner. Especially since dinner was just 3 miles up the same road in an Italian place tonight called Adriano's. I had the spicy Italian Sausage & Peppers over penne with a marinara sauce and Jody had the Vegetarian Primavera. Both were outstanding! Best dinner so far in Cody.
    Tomorrow we will be back to Yellowstone to check out the upper loop as we wind up our final night in Cody. Then we're off to Montana!

261.2 miles today
5765.3 miles total

4.377 gallons today
137.497 gallons total