Friday, April 25

We were happy to be in Mountain time again as Aidan woke us up at 8:00 instead of 7:00. We lounged a bit but knew we had to get on the road to Yellowstone. Once we were up, we realized that we’d never set our alarm clock with the time change, and it was in fact 9:00. So our day got off to a later start that we’d planned. We got to West Yellowstone with just enough time to have lunch before the first IMAX showing of Yellowstone. We were the only ones in the theater until the movie started, when one more couple joined us. Aidan liked it, although some parts were scary for him. He kept talking about the bear that broke a table afterward. We then headed in to the park itself. We basically just had time to drive through, but that was OK because we know we’ll come back sometime during the prime season. About half the roads were still closed, and a few that were open had been opened days before, including one we drove. As we entered the park, we could see evidence of the fire in 1988. There were big patches of just small trees, and a few burned remains of bigger ones. It did make it easy to spot wildlife. We saw buffalo and elk almost as soon as we entered the park. There was a crowd gathered at a pull off to watch a group of crows and a bald eagle scavenging off a dead buffalo. Aidan fell asleep almost as soon as we were in the park, so he missed a lot. We drove along some roads through the hills, and it started snowing fairly hard. We were amazed at how much snow was still on the ground there, too. They were expecting several inches by tomorrow morning. We stopped briefly at the visitor center at Mammoth Springs, at the north entrance. On the way in, we saw a buffalo and a few elk grazing in the yard, right in front of the buildings. Aidan enjoyed the animals on display, and the ranger there gave him a Junior Ranger button. We decided we’d better hit the road before the snow got any worse so we could find a place to stay for the night. We looked in the first main town, and didn’t have any luck, so we pushed on to Big Springs, where we knew there were a few parks. There weren’t any signs there, so we just took the 2nd exit, where we finally saw a little trailer sign. We followed the roads winding through the town, and nearly turned back a couple of times. We got a bit out of town, and there was a sign that just said “Camp 1 mile” so we decided to go a bit more before giving up. Eventually we came across Spring Creek park, which looks like the big draw is trout fishing. It was a great park, with campfire rings (though it was too cold to be outside) and plenty of space between spots. We settled in for the night,