Day 51: West Yellowstone, MT (rest day)

A day without cycling and some time to explore the Yellowstone National Park. The tour bus picked me up at the campground a little over 8 am, so compared to previous days I could sleep in big time :) The tour itself was off course super touristic with a big "sit in bus, get out of bus to take picture, get back in bus" factor. Still it was the best way to see a lot of the park in one day. Plus, as I was the only one in our group travelling by myself, I could ride shotgun all day :)

The tour was on the lower loop of the Yellowstone park. Early during the tour we passed the Canadian cyclists that I met yesterday. Roughly half of the loop was new to me, with stops at the lower and upper falls of the Yellowstone River and the Lake Hotel and a ride through the Hayden Valley, where we spotted numerous buffalo. At one of the stops there was even a bull buffalo standing on the road right in front of us! Next to the buffalo we spotted some osprey during this part.

The other half was along the route I cycled yesterday. We off course stopped at Old Faithful, where I now had the time to walk around the Upper Geyser Basin to watch much more astonishing geysers and hot springs and off course again witness an erruption of old faithful. We also made a stop at the Lower Geyser Basin where we walked along hot springs, mudpots, fumaroles (steam vents) and more geysers. On the way back we even spotted a bald eagle sitting high up in a tree along a river.

After the tour it was time to get things ready for some more cycling today. West Yellowstone was already the end of section 8 out of 12 and also marked the end of the Wyoming part of the route. Luckily the WiFi at the campground now worked, so I could search for and contact some WarmShowers hosts for the coming section. Unfortunately the rain and coldness of yesterday caused one of my ears to get blocked, which is rather annoying. I hope (results from the past indicate otherwise) that ear drops might solve this, otherwise I'm gonna have to see a doctor sometime, somewhere along the road.