Day 29: Leaving Yellowstone, Parte Un

The Overlook Hotel

Despite the comfortable and pricey accommodations, I woke with the sun. Six hours of sleep after fourteen hours of travel left me feeling cranky, irritable, and headachy. I wondered if my fever had returned. I downed some painkillers and went looking for breakfast. Along the way, I peered outside, where other early risers were slowly gathering. An eruption must be due. I followed the boardwalk from the lodge in a long arc around the geyser.



I imagine that I have little to say about Old Faithful that hasn't been said many times over. It's pretty magnificent. Hundred foot high spout of boiling water, billowing clouds of steam rising to the clear blue sky, the works. Ayup. Youse should see it.

Passing back through the lodge's rear courtyard where I'd parked my bike, I almost walked face first into an enormous blue Genie cherry picker parked just a few feet from my bike. Apparently there was maintenance work to be done on the aerie, and a couple of grubby steeple jacks were brought in for the job. The cherry picker was the largest I'd ever seen, and I watched as they scoped it up four, five, six stories, to the roof of the steeple, and then halfway back down, where they lingered, inspecting the lodge exterior. I was reminded of certain friends, some of whom would have given a premium bottle of Scotch for an opportunity to pilot such a beast.



After gorging myself at the lodge's breakfast buffet, I returned to my room for another nap, still determined to get the most out of it. I still felt off, a feeling that remained with me until checkout time. According to the schedule I'd adopted, this would've been my off day, but this was no place to take off. I returned shakily to the road.

If my entry into the sulphur lands was like a good tab of ecstasy, flooding my system with tasty endorphins, then today I was feeling the unavoidable serotonin deficit, or "suicide Tuesday" as one friend calls it.


Kepler Cascade: looking straight down into the gorge

Throughout the day I was cranky and irritable. I swore beneath my breath at motorists. I grew angry at snapshot tourists: people who drive up to a scenic vista, hop out of their car long enough for a photo, and on their way; or worse still, those who don't even bother to leave their car to take the photo. Sometimes I wanted to scream at them, "GET OUT OF MY WAY! I'M AN HONORED VISITOR!" I passed seven cars parked on the roadside, partially blocking the road, so they could all photograph one lonely moose. The temperature fluctuated up and down by what felt like twenty degrees as clouds hid and revealed the sun.

At least I could get off the road. The lovely thing about traveling by bicycle is that you can step off the road wherever you like, to see things that no driver ever will. In Yellowstone, you only have to take a few steps. I took a short break by a lily pond, breathing in the quiet of the tall grass by the pond side.



Despite my crankiness, the climbing wasn't bad, to start out. I had two big climbs for the day, both up and over the twisted spine of the Continental Divide. I reached the first one easily enough, and took a quick break by the marker. This was the second time I had crossed the divide, and I was put in mind of a quote from a Bond novel. (Dr No? Goldfinger? I couldn't remember.) "The first time is happenstance. The second time is coincidence. The third time, Mr. Bond, it's enemy action." I wondered what else the divide had in store for me.

While I was lingering there, I was approached by a big fellow in a blue sweatshirt and a flame patterned dew rag. He was in shadow, and at first I took him for Indian, but as he stepped into direct light, I saw that I couldn't be further off. With his blond hair and broad features, he looked more likely to be of Scandinavian descent, in about his 50s. He was Bob, a pharmacist from West Virginia, and he used to be a bicyclist, before his knees went bad and had to be replaced. Like Frank the frozen man, he'd ridden a Bianchi (the second time someone had mentioned this brand I didn't know). He'd moved to motorcycles only a couple of years ago, and he'd just come from Sturgis, the annual Harley Davidson rally in South Dakota. He showed me his motorcycle, and the walking stick he'd picked up along the way in Snake River, Idaho. Bob seemed wistfully interested in my trip, as if he'd have loved to have done it himself, if only his knees hadn't given out. He reminisced about bicycles he'd owned. He gave me his card, and offered to put me up if I passed by his way in West Virginia.



It was about here where I'd misread my map, and thought that I'd already climbed two humps when I'd only climbed one. The second climb came as a complete surprise that set me back to swearing, and it was only stubborn anger that carried me through. I wondered if I might be suffering from altitude sickness, a thought that returned to me repeatedly over the following days.


Third time: enemy action

I continued wearily on through the park, passing wonders I had no mind for. I stopped for another break at an overlook above Shoshone lake. A minivan parked behind me and disgorged a nuclear family, who showed an interest in me. My bicycle and my trip were of frequent interest to other tourists, but my desire to talk about them was waning.


Shoshone Lake


Fire zone

At last I reached a long downhill slide toward the inland sea that is the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake. It sprawled, gargantuanly, below me. On the way down I passed a series of bicyclists climbing up, spaced apart like pearls from a torn necklace, one, then three, five, eight in total. I reached the bottom, passed the villages of West Thumb and Grant Village, went on.

I stopped again at Lewis Lake, where I dipped my toes in the chilly water and pondered my next move. The south side of the park has fewer services than the west side, and opportunities were slim.


Lewis Lake

A campground waited around the south tip of Lewis Lake. I crawled in, bleary eyed, with only 30 miles to show for the day. I arrived at 6pm. By 7:30 I'd set up camp, had dinner, and crawled into my tent, where I read briefly, then slept for 12 hours.

Alive in: Yellowstone