Our first full day in Yellowstone was rather interesting. We decided to drive the Grand Loop. We did the Firehole drive. Mike showed me the cave with bones in it a couple years ago but I have never gotten a picture until now. I guess these bones have been in this cave for a long time. Who knows whose bones they are... but they are still neat.
Next we stopped at Mattie's Grave. It is a grave that is really in the middle of nowhere. Not many people know about it. There use to be the Fountain Hotel which her and her husband were the care takers of back in the mid 1800's. Anyways Mattie ended up getting sick and dieing 1889 and was buried near the hotel. Well eventually the hotel burned down and they rebuilt a bigger hotel... which became abandoned when the Old Faithful hotel was built and became so popular. Anyways they burned the abandoned building down in 1927. You cannot even tell there was ever a hotel there... so now her grave sits pretty well in the middle of nowhere. Her husband had wanted to be buried next to her when he died but unfortunately by that time they had made it a law that you could not be buried in National Parks... so she is alone. Anyways... its tradition to stop at her grave when we come to Yellowstone.
Later on in our drive we saw a Grizzly Bear. Mike ran over and got pictures while I sat in the car. At first I thought it was just a brown bear... but looking at the pictures we realize it has a hump, and it was a big bear... so it I am pretty sure it was a grizzly just walking along the road.
The next interesting thing was when we went to Tower. There is an upper viewing area but you can also hike down to a lower area. Going downhill was great... but going uphill didn't work so well with me. I had a little medical scare. I guess I am still trying to get over my health issues last month when I got really anemic. I have felt much better... but still not 100%. I also was very dehydrated. I had a really hard time going back up the hill and had to keep stopping. I felt like I was going to throw up and also was feeling faint. It got really bad when I stopped and sat down on a rock. I have never gotten so close to passing out. There was a lady who was walking past who asked if I was ok and offered me water. I was very out of it and wanted some water but couldn't tell her because myhearing at that point started going funny. It sounded like everyone was talking to me from the other end of a tunnel. Then my vision started blurring and I honestly thought I was going to pass out. Luckily I didn't pass out and eventually made it back up to the car. Mike was awesome and stayed with me the entire time until we got up by his parents.. he then ran ahead and got me a drink and brought it back to me. I guess my lips had no color and I looked really pale. It honestly scared me when I almost passed out. I have never gotten that close to passing out and it was scary. I am glad I survived. I guess I still need to take it easy until I can get all healed up. Plus I am thinking it might be time to visit a Dr when I get back to Salt Lake.
Prior to the whole medical crisis we had an interesting drive around Yellowstone Lake. There was tons of smoke. There was the Arnica fire that started burning Wednesday night. It went from 4 acres to 250 by this afternoon. Anyways the smoke was very thick going around the lake. This was the best picture I could get which showed the smoke.
The fun part was after we got to Norris. We were going to have to drive back the way we came because the road was closed for construction between Norris and Madison (which we were aware of). Anyways... come to find out since we had gone around the lake... the fire got out of control and they had to close the road so that meant we were stuck on the other side of the park from our Motel and only had one option to get back... going thru Bozeman and down the Gallatin Highway... which added a few hours to our drive. We weren't that excited... but it wasn't too bad. We were able to reminisce about our honeymoon and driving down the highway. It was actually fun reliving those memories.
We finally made it back to West Yellowstone by about 8 PM. We then went shopping at a few book stores and then had a very late dinner. It was quite the day but it was fun...(except not the close to dying part). It was definitely a day to remember!
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