To start my day off yesterday Jeannie and I went to Fishing Bridge to delight ourselves by browsing through the Bargain Loft at the Yellowstone General Store there. It's the only YGS in the park to have a Bargain Loft and they have all sorts of clothing, gear and knick knacks at clearance prices. We have clearance items in our store but nothing like Fishing Bridge's. It's great fun to see what new items that they have added.
I then decided to drive the northern loop (my favorite pastime). When I got back to Canyon in the afternoon it started to cloud up. Rain was coming so I knew that the ranger hike I was going to go on was going to be cancelled (also because the trail was closed when some hikers stumbled across a moose on the trail). I grabbed my book, Mark of the Grizzly, and headed to Hayden Valley to read and watch the rain come in. My private pull out ended up not being that private. If a car pulls into one most people driving by assume that they are missing something so they pull in too. So it was me, my book, a grazing bison, and a steady stream of cars ~ as well as a huge diesel truck that parked next to me pumping his fumes towards me. I decided to head back to the dorms for nap time.
After dinner Jeannie, Luke, David, Dave, Brandon, Carl and I headed to the employee room to listen to a YNP bear biologist give a talk on bears. It was rather interesting. Tonight we will all head back there to listen to a wolf lecture.
4 new employees came last night. They are all from Croatia The girls from China are teaching me some words in Mandarin. I have 'hello' down (it sounds like 'nee how').
I awoke this morning to snow falling. It is rather cold outside. I decided to take the northern loop again. South of Mammoth, through the rather thick fog, I could make out a couple wolves. It was much too foggy to pull off a take a picture unless I wanted to risk being hit (which I didn't). I got all the way to Tower when I found out that Dunraven Pass was closed due to snow. That meant turning around and driving nearly 50 miles back the way I had just come. Luckily, the rangers were in the process of taking down the road closure sign. Whew, that was lucky. I did manage to take a couple pictures of 2 big horn sheep by the road with a tiny little baby. On a cuteness scale it rated a 10!!
I made it over the pass just fine but there was a lot of snow around. The pass took me high into the clouds and it was a little difficult navigating the winding road for awhile. I took it slow, especially after I saw evidence left by a bison on the road.
