West Yellowstone, MT

Day 39: Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Ennis or thereabouts to West Yellowstone: 57 miles

After one heck of a lot of sleep, waiting for the wind and rain to stop, we arose early for a change, and decided to hit the road without eating breakfast, to take advantage of the calm. As usual, the Chicago Three soon left me behind. And skipping breakfast was a mistake. The wind resumed earlier than I had expected, and that, combined with the up-river grade and the light-headedness caused by an empty stomach, made for a bit of a slog. The empty stomach was cured by a stop at an RV park - the restaurant was closed, but the park hostess fixed me a "gourmet" hot dog. I don't remember seeing anything memorable, except for a bunch of fly fishermen and that rock in the river, until reaching West Yellowstone.

How many thousands of years has that rock been there?

Some of the Wounded Warrior riders were congregated at a bike shop, and I went in to ask if Nik had been there - his bike had needed some adjustments. I said, "He cycles in cutoffs and flip-flops." The shop owner said, "Oh, the guy with the gun! Yeah, you missed him by maybe half an hour." Nik is carrying a gun in a holster on this trip - looked like a 45, but then I don't know guns. I never got up the nerve to talk with him about it.

West Yellowstone is, of course, a tourist town, being right outside the west gate to Yellowstone Park; and it has, of course, a western theme.

Getcher elk burgers here!

There's a sort of hostel in town, in the Madison Hotel, which is over 100 years old. Actually, "hostel" means there are small rooms with three beds, and showers are down the hall. I shared a room with Phil, an Australian somewhere around my age who had bought a Co-Motion for his touring.

The Madison Hotel - authentic vintage western.

The bear ate my flag...

Three bunks to a small room--
it would have been cozy.

Although we could have had a bison burger or elk burger for supper, the hotel clerk said that we should visit the Taco Bus, which served loaded plates at a reasonable price. It sounded good to us - although Phil was surprised to find that it was an actual bus! We followed that with ice cream, of course. I had a root beer float made with huckleberry ice cream. This is the first time I'd ever been told "If you run out of root beer, just come back and we'll fill it up again!"

Are all taco buses white?

I stayed up until 2:30 am, trying to catch up on my blogging. As you can tell, it didn't work. And it had the expected effect in the morning.