We made it, we think...

[July 8]
Today we woke up at the base of Devils Tower about 100 ft from the entrance to the National Park. We got going around 8:00 am to head over to see Devil’s Tower. We ended up buying a National Park Annual Pass, what a great idea. This will allow us to get into any National Park until next July. The card goes with the person, not the car, so if you want to go somewhere, we’d be more than happy to go withJ Once inside the park we walked up a trail to see the sides of the mountain that we couldn’t see from our campsite. Terry then decided to go bouldering up to touch the actual base of the tower. For this, you have to register with the Ranger Station, that way they know who is up there and if you don’t return. We both began climbing and scrambling over the boulders at the base of the tower. Terry is much braver than Anna. He made it just about to the top, but then it got really steep and without proper climbing gear, he couldn’t reach the tower. He was within loud talking distance of a guy who was scaling the vertical face of the tower. Anna on the other hand, thought she was going to pee her pants because she couldn’t figure out how she would get down, so she stopped half-way up and just sat on some really big rocks and waited for Terry to come down. We both successfully made it down and after that we turned in our card to the Ranger Station and we were on our way to Yellowstone.

We decided that we were going to enter Yellowstone through Beartooth Pass. This took quite a while to get to, but it was definitely worth it. It started just outside of Red Lodge Montana. The road winds up the mountain and, with making a few scenic stops, it took us about 4 ½ hours from the start of the Pass until we hit Yellowstone. It was definitely worth it! The pass reaches a point of 10,900 ft. In addition to the fantastic views and scenic vistas, we got to see some marmot, billy goats, and of course a bird. Not just any bird, but a dead one hanging upside down from our front bumper, the only part being exposed was its little head. It was very sad and disgusting to see. Terry ended up taking pliers and removing it. Other than that the scenery was great! When you reach the top, you’d think you’d just start heading back down the other side, not here. You reach a giant plateau at the top of the mountain, beautiful and remarkable. This Pass is a high recommendation for anyone heading out this way.

Okay, for this part I have to back up a little earlier in the day. Terry called the campground in Yellowstone around noon-ish to let them know that we were running late and if there was anything special that we needed to do for our reservation for that night. They looked up our confirmation and told us that everything would be okay and that they would simply put our name on a board with our site number, easy enough. We ended up getting to the Canyon Campground around 11:30 pm-midnight. This is at about the middle of Yellowstone, so quite away in. Our name was nowhere to be found on the board. We stopped some Park Rangers and they said there was nothing that they could do for us and they told us to speak to the people in the lodge. We went to the Canyon Lodge Office and the people told us that there was nothing that they could really do for us. They could see our reservation on their computer, but instead of it being for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, like we planned and spoke with two different people about, they had our reservation starting on Thursday and going through Saturday. So, its midnight and we have no place to go. We asked the person at the front desk what we were supposed to do. We asked him if we could sleep out in the parking lot in the teardrop, he eventually said that we could. We then decided to go in and brush our teeth and such. Terry thought that it would be a good idea to get a note on some sort of letterhead saying that there was some sort of computer error and that our reservation was somehow messed up. The person we had originally spoken with had us then speak to a manager, but she could not give us any sort of thing to allow us to park there. She said that the Ranger’s would come by and either tell us to move or fine us. Terry, who is so good in these situations, (as embarrassing as it can be) pressed the person for options. This person finally called someone else, who then told her to contact the Rangers about an emergency campsite. It was that simple. She called them and within a minute they told us that we had campsite, Canyon A-1, for the night and that we could go to the registration/reservation desk at 7:00 am the next morning. We were so exhausted. It was 1:00 am at this point and we had a very, very long day. We simply left the camper attached to the car, put down the front wheel and fell asleep. Oh, the Sherman luck, isn’t it grand!