Yellowstone Road Trip – Day 7
I awoke to rain…crap…I don’t want to crawl out of this tent…maybe I’ll just lay here a bit longer. My ploy worked…after about 30 minutes, the rain had stopped, so I woke Ryan and told him we were packing up before getting dressed. I didn’t want to get our clean clothes dirty and we were going to do laundry before venturing out today.
The laundry at Grant Village was quite nice…lots of washers, dryers, and bins to collect clothes for transfer between the washers and dryers. Plus, they had coffee and muffins, so there was our breakfast!
After the laundry was done, we drove towards Madison Junction and then north towards Norris Junction. We never made it that far, though, because the speed limit was only 25mpg due to loose gravel from road work. It was taking too long and we had decided we were leaving for our next location. We had seen all we could of Yellowstone that didn’t involve a lot of walking/hiking (I just couldn’t since the altitude pretty much incapacitated me). We did see more thermal activity and Gibbon Falls before leaving the park.
After leaving Yellowstone, we drove to Sawtelle Mountain Resort and set up our tent in a nice, shady site. I wasn’t thrilled that it was the furthermost from the restrooms, but oh well.
By this point, we were hot and sweaty. The resort had an indoor pool and we were surprised that nobody was using it. The water was the right temperature and it felt so good to just float on my back for a while. I was disappointed that the hot tub was broke…I felt it would have done my inflammation a lot of good. Speaking of which…since we were at a lower altitude, I noticed that I didn’t ache as much and it was easier to breath. The downside was that instead of severely dry sinuses that I had in Yellowstone, I now had a stuffy nose and post-nasal drip. Yuck!
But back to the swimming….I was really enjoying myself when I looked out the window and noticed that the sky was black and the trees were really blowing severely. I told Ryan to hurry and hop out…we needed to get back to our tent and get it taken down before it started to rain. We had already put it away wet and muddy just that morning and I didn’t want to make it worse. When we got to the tent, we got there just in time to see it take flight, stakes and all! The stakes didn’t make any difference, nor did the air mattresses, sleeping bags and pillows that were inside. Our tent had become a kite! I grabbed it and stood on one end while Ryan started to remove the rain fly. The wind was so strong, it was a difficult task. There were large construction drums that were blowing across the road and they were heavier than the tent! The whole time we’re wrestling with the tent, we’re dripping wet from the pool and freezing from the drop in temperature.
Once everything was thrown haphazardly in the car, we headed to the office to see if they had any rooms available. They had an economy room left for $69. We’ll take it! Grabbing a few things from the car, a gust of wind whipped gravel against my skin…it felt like I was hit with buck shot!
The room wasn’t bad. It had a queen bed, shower and toilet in the bathroom and a sink in the main area. it also had a coffee pot and coffee, plus A/C and Dish TV. Another bonus was the free WiFi, though it was on the weak side.
We ran next door to Subway and picked up dinner, then went back to our room. It finally started to really pour as we we going into our room.
