Weather in Yellowstone National Park

Sorry if you were on the edge of your seat for last night's post.  I took my love to town and the blog didn't happen.  Not really, hubby, but I did go into Gardiner with the gang.  We checked out the two bars in town. 

I had one bottle of Trout Slayer Ale at the local tavern.  Moose Drool Ale will be my next purchase.  The taste was great, but the names make the experience even sweeter.

 Our bartender was Cowboy Mike who looks over his customers like they were his own children.  Some of them might be his. It seems that he has been married 3 times and has 10 children.  Must be the beer that makes a man a man out here.

The ladies and I headed to the K-Bar to meet up with the rest of the class.  See the clouds over the mountains?  More about that later.

Here's Springfield Adam again, whooping it up.

Those Ohio boys know how to party.










What you need to remember is that there were clouds over the mountains.  It rained all night.  Not a big deal.  It rains in Ohio.  But I am in Yellowstone National Park, where the elevation is around 8,000 feet in most places. 

There was some snow on the car this morning.  Kind of cool.  We were all scheduled to take a bus tour of the Park, and like innocent tourists, we piled on and entrusted our lives in the hands of Bruce, our driver.

This is the back of Bruce's head.  Evel Knievel had nothing on this guy. 

He's worked here forever.  Nothing strikes fear in this man's heart.  He could drive his bus through herds of bison being chased by wolves and Indians.

He would laugh at the risk.

This is what Bruce laughed at today.  A nice foot of Spring snow in the Park.

The higher we went, the more it snowed.

Lots of snow.  Heaps and piles of snow.

Snow on icy roads with no guard rails, beside cold rivers.

I took this picture from the bus.  We were moving fast on the icy roads with no guard rails.

No guard rails.

Bruce kept turning his head to tell jokes to the women behind him.  He told us jokes about buses going off the road and bridges collapsing.  Funny guy.  May he rot in tour driver hell.

To avoid thinking about death, I photographed more animals.

You needed to see more bison.

Again, a picture from the bus, so it won't win any prizes.

This is a grizzly bear.  He was digging up some roots.

I took this before I thought my life was in danger.

We did make it to the Old Faithful Inn.  The lobby is incredible.

It's not open yet.  We could have enjoyed it more if we knew whether or not we could get down the road again. 

The debate was on about whether the roads were closed.  We didn't want to be stranded there, but then again....slip sliding down a mountain with zero visibility is not a great option.

My future room mate, Sibyl, and I posed in front of the registration desk where we will be making tons of mistakes for quite some time.

Bruce decided that we could make it down the road that was officially closed.  I stared at this sign next to me for several hours.

I couldn't figure out how this would work when our bus plummeted into the icy river.

I stared at it anyway.  Sibyl went to sleep to avoid worrying.

Obviously, we made it back alive.  The trip that would normally take 3 hours round trip, took us 6.  I have finally unclinched certain body parts. 

Let this be a warning for anyone planning a trip to Yellowstone this time of year.  You can get all seasons in one day, they say.  I only saw two...Winter and almost Winter. 

I will survive.