Jody says, "Best 2 days yet"

Dear Andrew,

Now I REALLY don't understand why you left Yellowstone early all
those years ago. I know you were young, and I know you were surely
unduly influenced by young adults not nearly as wise as you, but I
just can't imagine why you would leave such a glorious place. It is
still the most "egocentric" act of your life, and thank goodness that
phase is over.

You loving mother

Sorry not to have blogged yesterday, but we spent the night in
Yellowstone with no internet, so today will have to do for two days.
We rode into Yellowstone at noon on Thursday and were there for 24
hours. The weather was beautiful and the park more so. We saw all the
animals, except bears, and for that Mike was grateful. I felt sure
my scooter could outrun a bear, but Mike seemed unwilling to give it
a go. I have included three pictures from Yellowstone of several
animals we spotted. You can put your own captions on them.

We saw Old Faithful erupt this morning and headed for Grand Teton
Park. Again, a startling sight, so different than Yellowstone just
up the road. I keep thinking about people going west by wagon train
and knowing I would just have stayed right there had I seen those
mountains to cross. We got the last two rooms in the park last
night, so the lady on the phone said. Much of the park lodging has
closed for the season. I should say we got the last two
accommodations with indoor plumbing. They were not luxurious, but
they were clean and had a bathroom, so most of my needs were met.
There was frost on the bikes when we came out this morning, and it
was a cold ride for the first 1.5 hours. But we dressed for it, and
it was beautiful. This is the perfect time to go there. There are
hardly any people and the autumn is setting in. Interesting to me,
the trees in Yellowstone are all evergreen, lodge pole pine for the
most part, and so do not turn. But the ground cover turns the most
brilliant reds, yellows and golds, as beautiful as VT. It looks like
the tress are standing on an oriental carpet.

We have had lots of comments about being from VT, such long distance
travel, etc. At Mt Rushmore, the parking attendant taking our money
was dumbfounded (or dumb). She sputtered, "Delaware"? I said no,
that it was Vermont, and I had to spell it. Seems she had never had
anyone from there before.

Yesterday at breakfast, Mike and I ate alternately, another story to
tell at another time. When I came in he gave me the paper and
pointed out an editorial I should read. I set about getting my food,
and when I returned to the table my paper was gone and the people at
the next table were reading it. I said, "Excuse me, but I think you
stole my paper." We laughed, and I pointed out that where I come
from, people don't steal papers. They were from Montana, in town for
a wedding, and had traveled to New England and Vermont. The woman
said that she knew Vermont because we have the cutest little, itty-
bitty state house. I pointed out that there are not a lot of us, and
it seemed adequate. Her husband said that he thought it was pretty
funny that it was located two blocks from the "freeway". I said I
was convinced by that remark that they had been there, but also noted
that there was no "freeway" when they built the capital building.
Funny the observations they took away from their visit. We parted
friends as I gave them the comics from the paper, all they really
wanted anyway.

We have now traveled 3113 miles in 13 days. We have 1,000 more to
San Francisco. We are really tired of these clothes.