With things remaining relatively quiet around camp, we left our work camping job behind in favor of a four day camping trip, including a drive through Yellowstone National Park. We decided to just take our semi truck and use that as our camper, leaving our fifth wheel safely tucked away back at the fly fishing camp we worked at.
Our first night was spent quietly camped along the Yellowstone River, just outside Big Timber, Montana. Most of the fishing access points along Montana’s rivers allow overnight camping, and most offer vault toilets. We took advantage of this free camping opportunity and enjoyed it thoroughly.
To prepare our meals, we took along an electric griddle that we could run off of our portable generator. This enabled us to make our bacon and eggs for breakfast, and then have hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. in the evening. It turned out to be a very efficient kitchen! Our truck is already outfitted with a refrigerator, coffee pot, closet and bed, so we were all set.
The next morning, after Bubba cooked us a nice breakfast, we headed through Livingston, Montana (the town where Bubba was born), then turned south to enter Yellowstone through the adorable town of Gardiner. The old highway entered the national park through a stone arch, and you can still pull over and snap a photo in front of the original arch. The valley between Livingston and Gardiner has to be one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on!
This was my first visit to Yellowstone, and I was so excited to finally see it. I have to say, it did not disappoint! If one really wants to experience the earth as a living thing, there is no better place to do that than in Yellowstone.
Bubba had cautioned me not to get too excited about seeing all the wildlife Yellowstone National Park is rumored to harbor. Ironically, just after entering the park boundaries, we spied elk everywhere! We also saw an incredible amount of bison and, I have to say, they were some of the largest free range bison I have EVER seen! (We’ve seen them in South Dakota, North Dakota and Colorado as well).
Of course, no visit to Yellowstone would be complete without stopping to watch Old Faithful erupt. We arrived at the Old Faithful Lodge and checked the estimated time for the next eruption, and were surprised to find just how accurately the park geologists are able to predict when the geyser will put on her show. We found a good place to sit in the viewing area and she erupted within five minutes of the estimated time. Bubba had seen Old Faithful several times before, but he said our visit was probably the best eruption he’d seen out of all of them.
After spending a magnificent day in the park, we continued on through the east entrance, headed towards Cody, Wyoming. We hadn’t been able to find a campsite within Yellowstone National Park, but we got lucky and found a gorgeous campsite in a U.S. Forest Service campground only a 20 minute drive from the park. If we had decided to go back for another day in Yellowstone, this would have been a good jumping-off spot.
We tucked ourselves away in a campsite right along the shores of the North Fork of the Shoshone River. This was just supposed to be an overnight stop, but we enjoyed the campground so much we ended up staying two nights.
(Want to stay there too? Here’s how to find it: Eagle Creek Campground, N. Fork Highway/Highway 20, Cody WY. GPS: 44.471607, -109.885685)
Next, we headed out towards Cody, then up and across the Bighorn Mountains. We were amazed at the beauty of Buffalo Bill State Park as we passed through, and put that one on our list of places we will return to. We visited the Buffalo Bill Dam, an engineering marvel for it’s time and, upon completion in 1910, the tallest dam in the world.
Want to see more of the dam? Watch it here:
Our weekend camping trip was rapidly coming to a close, and we needed to get back to our fly fishing camp and resume our work camping jobs. We had already seen so much amazing beauty and so many amazing sights, but we had one more big surprise in store for us.
While driving up and across the Bighorn Mountains we spotted several moose!! (I think our final count was nine). Growing up in Southern California, I had only seen one other moose, and that was shortly after we had moved to Colorado. These were some of the most beautiful creatures, just spectacular in their size and stature. (We later learned that moose had heavily populated the Bighorns, and that sightings of them were quite common). Seeing these rare and wonderful creatures put the perfect close on what had been an absolutely perfect camping trip.
