Wednesday, May 18, 2011 we all woke to a frosty Yellowstone Park, cold enough that I stayed bundled in my sleeping bag for a few more hours holding my bladder back the entire time. We planned for another full day in the park and hit more of the sites trying to capture some of the “beautiful” morning light before the midday sun and flocks of tourists got on the roads.
That chilly air made for a lot of steam coming off the geysers making it difficult to see anything. As we left our first location of the day, tourists’ buses begin dropping tons of people off; at one point I’m pretty sure I saw Mr. Miyagi. We continued driving all throughout the park checking out the geyser locations and some of the waterfalls. Throughout our driving we saw countless bison, elk and even a couple of grizzly bears and bald eagles. After a restless night before for a few of us; me having forgotten my sleeping pad and Patrick forgetting the plug for his air mattress, decided to go into town on the westside of Yellowstone and get some supplies. We ended up having a warmer night in the park and a more restful night than previous.
Thursday, May 19th 2011 we once again awoke in Yellowstone National Park, only waking up a few times in the night to hear buffalo walking through the campground. We all woke up early to figure out what the plan for the day was. Over some egg and bagel sandwiches we decided to head north to Mammoth and leave Yellowstone for the second part of the drive around 11 am. In Mammoth there are a few boardwalk trails that overlook the valley and go alongside some geysers. Most of the water in the area was still missing and it was a quick trip around the boardwalk. After a quick bathroom break, we were ready to hit the road again. We pulled into Helena, Montana around 2 pm, after a stop at the local Walmart to refill our Twinkie supply. Soon after, we headed by The Hobby Garage and then to Jason’s house were Tim and I were staying.
Jason Redfield offered his place for Tim and a friend to stay, that friend just happened to be me. Jason is an avid 1:1 wheeler, with several very cool builds sitting in his multicar garage and a few future projects sitting in the yard around it. Inside his garage was a first generation Bronco, a Grand Cherokee with a few inches of lift on 35’s, a 2nd generation Toyota pick-up 37’s and the real cheap truck; which if you haven’t seen is a massive Toyota Land Cruiser with a whole lot of customization. Unimoger has a build thread for the 2.2 version if you haven’t seen it yet.
We checked into Jason’s house around 5pm took a couple showers, said ‘thank you’ about a hundred times, before I was off to the Hobby Garage for some down time.
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