Thursday, July 11th: Canyon Village – Yellowstone National Park, WY or … beauty is fragile

Into Yellowstone National Park – we are normally very excited, but the sadness is still there. My woman tells me she explicitly played music from Yellowstone National Park on the funeral service of her own mom.

A man wants to take our picture at the entrance gate – my woman returns the favor, and gets bitten by an insect in the back of her head. My woman takes out the insect repellent – I hate that stuff! 

We are lucky and get to see our first bison along the Madison River. 

A few miles further an elk is hiding between the pines. Just past Madison campground we take the left turn towards Norris Junction: now my woman has to start the real pedaling… uphill. Wait, is she going to try the music box again. What a laugh…there is no radio reception on that thing while she is cycling. Anyways, the Gibbon falls are a nice sight! The climbing keeps going to the rim of the caldera. Unfortunately, there is no big view as a reward. There is no wildlife to be seen on the meadows this year. A pit stop at a picnic stop is the only time my boss gets off the saddle before reaching Norris Junction. From that point it’s a 12 mile ride to Canyon Village – with some 8% (and more) grade in it. The tongue of my woman hangs out her mouth, her lips feel very dry and a bit sore from wind, salt and sun, a firm look on her face tells me she’s not going to give up… Go woman! As we reach the top of the climb (500 m climb in 25 kilometers) of the day, I know my woman feels proud of herself. The last 6 miles or so are now downhill into the valley where Canyon Village lays. Here we have to wait almost two hours before we can go to our primitive cabin (yeah – no tent – my woman is scared of the bears at night!). Meanwhile the temperature dropped and later that evening we can congratulate ourselves of getting some of the forecasted rain (there was only a 10% chance – and we got it!)