Traveling with Ray Owens

We opted to put our vacation trip into 1^st gear.   Rather than drive into the park for most of the day we decided to go at a much more relaxed pace and spend more time in the community of West Yellowstone.   The town is virtually abandoned after about 8:30 when most of the tourists headed into the park. 

This morning, we walked, taking a long cut, to the city park.   While Logan and Charlotte played on the playground, the adults put our heads together to plan what turned out to be a pretty fabulous day of activities.   Around 10:30 we went shopping in the souvenir stores on the main drag.  We then had lunch at the Mexican Food Truck located across the street from our hotel.  The proprietors and the food were very good.   There were tables located in the sun and also under the shade trees.  Although it was a little cool this morning, by lunch time the shade felt good.

After lunch, we decided to drive the half hour to the northwest of town to the visitor center for Earthquake Lake.  On August 17, 1959, in the middle of night a 7.3 earthquake caused a massive rockslide in a narrow cannon of the Madison River and this created a rockslide dam that resulted in a six mile lake from the existing man made Hebgen dam upstream.  The quake caused some 80-million tons of rock to slide or be flung down the canyon. The riverbank was a popular recreation area.   Many houses and camp sites were crushed by the flying and rolling boulders.  The death toll reached 28.  Many of the dead remain buried under the huge boulders.  Other were drowned in the quickly rising water that came over the Hebgen dam.

After we visited the center, where charlotte had fun with the computer projected image on a sand box that represented the Madison Valley.   She moved the sand, and the image changed.  She was able to see the results of how a quake would change the topology. 

Some of us walked the trail up the hill to the bronze plaque memorializing the 28 deaths.   It was a little steep, but we had a good time and the views from up the mountain side were pretty spectacular. 

I asked the park ranger “if you were a bighorn sheep, where would you be hanging out today?”  I thought I was being funny but to my surprise, she said that someone earlier had reported some hanging out about 2 miles to the west.   So off we went to see if they were still there.   Sure enough, we found them.  They were hanging out in some rancher’s pasture.

We were going to stop at a boat ramp on the return trip to stick our toes in the lake.   But when we got there it was raining and not wanting to get anything above our toes wet, we opted to forego the toe dipping.

Back in Yellowstone we drove back to the Grizzley and Wolf Center to see what the animals were doing today.   The wolves and chipmunks were much more active today that yesterday.

Next door to the Grizzly center is an Imax theatre.  We bought ticket to see the 4:00 showing of the Yellowstone film.   It was quite good.   It gave the dramatization of the early native Americans who lived in Yellowstone. Then the American who were not natives came west to explore Yellowstone.   There were incredible photographs of some of the geysers and waterfalls of Yellowstone.  The coolest thing for me was the film of grizzly bears standing on the hind legs and growling/bellowing.  I do not want to meet one.

For dinner we went to Pete’s Pizza and Pasta restaurant.  My spaghetti eating granddaughter, Charlotte, recommends it highly.   I asked her if it was her favorite food and she said it was.  Said she would choose spaghetti over almost any food.  Candace asked what food she would pick over spaghetti.  She said: “Chocolate, of course!”

Therefore, we walked across the street from Pete’s to The City Creamery that serves Homemade ice cream.  You will never guess what flavor Charlotte chose.

A good day.