Thursday July 5, 2012

We woke up this morning and gathered our belongings.  Dave and the boys got everything on the truck and then we sat down to sourdough pancakes.  Theo wasn’t so sure about them, but the other two boys enjoyed them, especially Dan!  We said our goodbyes to Charlie and Barb, their lovely home, and the fantastic views.  The boys had a grand time here and Theo was quite sad to leave, but I told him we would see Charlie and Barb again when they come out East.  We didn’t get but a quarter mile down the road when we had to turn around as we discovered the boys had left their hats and sunglasses.  When we found all of the lost items (Barb had loaned Dan her hat while we were there and said he could keep it), we finally got on our way for good.  We drove up to Cody and stopped for an excellent lunch in Granny’s Diner.  Just down the road from there is the Buffalo Bill Historical Museum.  We couldn’t see it all, but did wander through the Yellowstone Natural History section and the Firearms collection.  Alex, Dan, and Dave were quite fascinated with the huge collection of guns and Theo and I wandered around and looked at stuffed and mounted game animals.  It was 1 ½ hours to our campsite (Bridge Bay) at Yellowstone.  It showered most of the way from Cody and was still raining when we got to the campsite AND it was 50 degrees!  - quite a change from the 80’s and 90’s at Charlie and Barb’s.  Theo had his bag under the backseat of the truck so was able to pull out his raincoat.  The rest of us got soaked while we set up the tents.  We threw out sleeping gear under cover and stowed all of our food and cooking gear in the bear box.  The registration person said that there had been a bear spotted in camp so we didn’t want to take any chances.  By the time we finished, it was 7:00 and we were drenched.  I didn’t feel like cooking in the rain so we hopped in the truck, turned the heat on high and drove four miles back to Fishing Village for dinner at the snack shop.  The boys had burgers and pulled pork sandwiches and most of us had hot chocolate to warm us up.  Back at camp, the rain had stopped, but we brushed our teeth and got into our sleeping bags to read and warm up.