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Saturday, July 17

I wake to find Marilyn has gotten the fire going. We are leaving this morning so we have half a chocolate muffin and coffee and head up front to check out. During all the packing and trips to the bathroom, we see a rather mangy looking gray fox scurrying from cabin to cabin. We’re told that he and a friend live off the mice in the cabin area and are just doing their civic duty!

Amy and Annie check us out and give us advice about Cody and Red Lodge. We fill up at the local gas station and head for Mammoth Hot Springs. It’s only 18 miles down the road, so there is lots of time to stop at Wraith and Undine Falls along the way.

Mammoth is so very different from Tower-Roosevelt! We have gotten into the cowboy spirit and Mammoth is anything but. The hotel feels like you are back at the turn of the last century and suddenly I feel scruffy and uncomfortable. We do fine at the visitors’ center but are amazed to find the post office closed. Oh. It’s Saturday!

Then we try to check in and find that because our cabin (two double beds and a sink) isn’t ready, we aren’t even allowed to know which number it is! (We can read upside down, though, so we know anyway!) The dining room looks expensive and the cafeteria only has hamburgers and a couple of other sandwich things, so we decide we will start the tour of the trails and see what Gardner has to offer.

Half of the thermal features are on a driving loop and we figure we can do that part today, since we’ve already hiked to the two water falls, and leave the hiking part for tomorrow. When we get to Canary Spring, the first feature, we forgive Mammoth for its pretension and for being so crowded. How magnificent! Unlike the rest of the park, this area is underlain by limestone and the thermal features are all deposits of calcium carbonate, travertine, and consist mostly of terraces with stalagtites dripping down. Hot water loving bacteria called thermophiles have colored many of the deposits yellow, brown and green, while some are snow white. Everywhere you look is a picture waiting to be shot.

We do the entire loop and return to “town” to find that there are two elk in the media and a ranger making sure that people heed the “Danger, Do not approach elk” signs that are everywhere! Bill had said that elk and ground squirrels lived on the hotel lawn and obviously he is right – once again!

We pass right on by and go to Gardner to do laundry and get some dinner before settling down for the night. We had been told that one of the two laundries had WiFi and it does; but it isn’t working. Oh well, we write up yesterday and today while the clothes wash and dry and head to the Wokking Panda for a change of pace. It has been recommended by the lady that runs the laundomat, The Wash Tub. You can also shower here; but you can’t wash your horse blanket!

The Panda isn’t all that great; but our tummies are full and the hot tea was wonderful. Back in Mammoth the two young bull elk have moved down one median and the rangers and the tourists have followed. We pick up our cabin key, take some photos of the resident elk and move in for the next two nights. It is really hot and we’re hoping that a cool shower will help us sleep. At least we have a sink in our cabin so we don’t have to take our toothbrushes down to the showers with us!

A last minute addition to the blog, download some photos and off to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream! Marilyn checks in with her kids, forgetting that it is eleven o’clock at home! I’ve already heard from both of mine by text, so I’m a very happy camper! With luck we’ll get to the internet café in Gardner tomorrow and upload FOUR days worth of blogs complete with about a million photos!

Night, night!