We went to a presentation this evening at the Mammoth Springs Hotel. Randy Ingersall, an employee of Xanterra, gave a slide show on what it was like to tour Yellowstone in 1902. Xanterra runs the hotels and eating places in Yellowstone. Randy first worked as a dishwasher at Old Faithful in 1979. He decided that Yellowstone was the place for him and has worked here every summer since. He collects Yellowstone memorabilia. In 1988 he found a scrapbook in Santa Fe, New Mexico about a trip in 1902 by the Carland Family. It was a one month trip from Albany, New York to Chicago to St. Louis, to San Francisco to Los Angeles to Seattle to Yellowstone and back to Albany by train. Mr. and Mrs. Carland were going to a Shriners convention in San Francisco. The Shriners in Albany booked a special train to do this one month trip. It cost $250 per person (the average house in 1902 cost $2,500).
The Yellowstone part of the trip was five nights. They traveled by stagecoach. They stayed at hotels that no longer exist. A soldier was their tour guide since Yellowstone was run by the Army back then. They stayed in tents at Old Faithful. One of the most amazing things was the amount of clothing they wore while traveling back then. The men always had coats and ties. The women had full length dresses with lots of petticoats. Mr. Carland used to work as a salesman for Eastman Kodak and now owned his owned camera supply store in Albany. He took lots of personal photographs which were in the album. He made several mistakes labeling the photos, probably while trying to remember what they were several weeks later when he was putting together the scrapbook. He should have emailed the pictures out daily while he could still remember what they were.
The Carlands had one son whose second wife was living in New Mexico when she died. Randy tracked down that much of the son's history. He speculates that's how the scrapbook ended up at an antique store in New Mexico. Randy also got someone from Albany who heard his presentation a couple years ago to take a picture of the Carland's old house in Albany. That picture is now in the slide show (269 Spring Street). It was a fascinating story. Randy's main job for Xanterra is playing the piano in the hotel's recreation room every night. He gives one other presentation about the music of the park. We will be going to that on Sunday evening.
I learned yesterday that we've been doing our laundry all wrong. I was sitting in the campground laundromat at 9:30 last night using the internet. This older couple (70ish) came in and began removing removing clothes from a couple of the dryers. A few seconds later, two ladies in their late 30's or so came in. Then a guy in his late 30's came in. The older lady was going through the clothes from the dryer. She asked the older guy how many pairs of underwear he had in the wash. Then she wanted to know if they were new pairs or old pairs. Then the younger guy responded that his were new pairs. A long discussion followed of how many pairs each had. The older guy said his new ones were 36's and his old ones were 34's. I stared diligently at my screen. I did not look to see the clothes under discussion. I managed to keep a neutral expression on my face. After a few minutes they seemed to get the underwear issue resolved although I'm not sure if the young guy was in agreement with the solution.
Next the older lady asked where the colored clothes were. The older guy said in the dryer. She said that she had emptied both dryers and apparently someone had taken their colored clothes. There was some discussion of this issue before the older guy said that the colored clothes were in the dryer around the corner. I had finally decided that this was a mother and father, their two daughters and a husband of one of the daughters, all staying in the same RV. Apparently you just mix the clothes from everyone together and wash them without regard to being able to identify the clothes when they are done.
During some of this stimulating discussion, one of the daughters put another load of clothes in a washer. All four washers in the room had been empty during the preceding 30 or 40 minutes while the dryers were going. Now she decided to wash another load. She put the clothes in the washer and added the soap. Then she started asking each and every person if they had any quarters because she still needed a couple more to start the washer. She asked several of them before she got enough quarters. I never realized the proper technique at a laundromat is to put in the clothes and soap and then see if you can get enough quarters to start the wash. Finally, after 10 minutes, the whole group left and the laundromat was peaceful again. I made sure to finish using the internet before the washer completed its cycle. I don't know where the lady was going to get the quarters for the dryer, and I didn't want to hear the conversation about how to dry clothes without quarters.
This is why I travel. You never get to have these experiences if you just stay home.
The Beartooth Highway has been designated as America's most scenic highway by long-time traveler Charles Kuralt. I have no reason to disagree with him. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend coming out in the next couple months to give it a try before the snows close it down for the season.
On Monday we decided to make a quick dash out the Northeast Entrance of the park and drive Beartooth Highway, one of the most scenic mountain roads we know. We drove the whole thing in 2004 and really enjoyed it. In the spring of 2005, several portions of the highway got washed away during the spring snowmelt and the road was closed for over six months. In 2005, we could drive up the Wyoming (south) side of the road to the top of the mountain, but we couldn't drive down the Montana side into Red Lodge, Montana. This year the whole road is open again.
The smoke from the forest fires had gone away, so we had some good views. You get up to almost 11,000 feet twice while crossing. The road on the Wyoming side is a more gentle climb, but it has more curves. The Montana side goes down a very steep mountain using switchbacks with two or three miles of steep grades between the individual switchback curves. We found several locations on the Montana side where the repairs had been made. I've sent some pictures.
We saw lots of Marmots. We saw a couple Northern Harriers hovering motionless over the terrain in the strong winds. We saw an American Pipit. We saw several birds we didn't identify. We saw snow. We saw great mountain views in all directions. It would be easy to be convinced that the mountains go on forever in all directions. We stopped at a location with great views and had a picnic lunch.
As we were passing through the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone on the way out of the park, we got a great view of a Bald Eagle flying low parallel to the road. We also saw hundreds of Bison and lots of Pronghorns. We also got to see a family of Sandhill Cranes (two adults and a colt) - our first this year. We saw four Osprey in the vicinity of the Lamar Valley Osprey nest - one on the nest and three flying.
On the way back through the Lamar Valley we had to pick our way through a Bison herd crossing the road at a leisurely pace. They seemed rather indifferent to cars as if they might just shove them out of the way if they wanted to. I thought one bull had decided he didn't like us as he ran onto the road just barely in front of us, but it turned out he was interested in the female on the other side of the road who also crossed in front of us. The bull followed her back over to his side of the road.
We did stop for a short while in Red Lodge, Montana on the other side of the mountains. Charolette visited a quilt store, and I bought a cup of coffee. Our cell phones worked in Red Lodge. This is the first time since last Wednesday that we've had cellular service.
The Wyoming side of the mountain is Open Range. Apparently many tourists don't know what this means, so the signs read: "Open Range Expect Cows on Road". Then on the other hand, the cows aren't all that smart either. I sent a picture of one of the cattle guards.
Our drive, with very few side trips, was 255 miles, during which the vehicle was moving for 7 hours and 15 minutes according to my GPS system. The Beartooth Highway itself is about 60 miles each way. We're thinking about driving it one more time before we leave next week.
An update on license plates - we found New Hampshire - only four states to go.
I doubt that I will ever grow up. I've been watching car license plates again. In one day, on August 25, 2006, we spotted the tags from 41 states here in Yellowstone. The ones we did not get are Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Alabama. On our next trip into the park on August 27, 2006, we got four more. All we need now are Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island. Where are all the New England people?
We're staying in Gardiner (with an "i"). It is named after someone with the last name of Gardner (without the "i"). Apparently a local citizen messed up the spelling when the town name was officially registered. As you leave the town of Gardiner (with the "i"), you follow the Gardner (without the "i") River into Yellowstone National Park for several miles. Apparently the National Park Service can spell better than the citizens of Gardiner. The Gardner River runs into the Yellowstone River in the town of Gardiner. I wonder if any of the tourists actually notice the difference in the names?
This reminds me of the story of Casper, Wyoming and Fort Caspar. Casper was named after Fort Caspar. However, the representative of the City of Casper who went to the territorial capital to register the name didn't know the correct way to spell it, so the city has an "e" in its name instead of a second "a". It was never corrected. You will find old Fort Caspar still on the outskirts of Casper. Check any map of Casper.
Apparently it is difficult to correct mistakes in government bureaucracies.
My wife's name is Charolette. When she was born, a birth certificate was filed by the attending physician who was substituting for a doctor who was out of town. When the regular doctor returned, he also filed a birth certificate. Both doctors misspelled Charolette's name in different ways. Charolette's mother had certified copies of both birth certificates. A few years after Charolette and I were married, we decided we needed to get her name straightened out. We contacted the State of Oklahoma as to what we needed to do. As it turns out, the state had already eliminated one of the birth certificates as being a duplicate. All we had to do was file a form with two supporting pieces of evidence as to how Charolette's name should be spelled. The two pieces of evidence we submitted were an affidavit from Charolette's mother stating what the correct spelling should be and a copy of our daughter's birth certificate showing her mother's name as Charolette. We got an amended birth certificate from the state with the correct spelling. So, why didn't Gardiner and Casper do the same thing?