Day 1 in Yellowstone

[This is being posted on Friday because Yellowstone had no wireless Internet in the entire park and I had to wait until we got to Missoula to upload this.]

Wednesday we reached our ultimate destination, Yellowstone National Park, but on the way we had hoped to spend some time in Rigby, ID, home of Philo T. Farnsworth, “the Father of television.” Farnsworth invented the television in 1928. He grew up in a farm near Rigby. He reportedly said the row crops in the fields he grew up seeing were the inspiration for his invention. Alas, the “Farnsworth TV and Pioneer Museum” did not open until 1 pm and we couldn’t hang around that long in Rigby. Oh well. At least we got a picture of this great billboard outside of town.

Then it was on to Yellowstone. We saw a great Frostop Root Beer sign on the way. We entered through West Yellowstone and headed north taking in all the sights on the north end of the park. We had prepared ourselves for the fact that the park would be jammed with people, and this turned out to the true, though they tended to be pretty concentrated around the major attractions. In the late afternoon we pulled into Canyon Village, near the middle of the park, where I had booked two nights in a cabin. This proved to be a pretty good choice. The cabins are kind of ugly on the outside, but pleasant enough and functional on the inside.

We had dinner in the cafeteria, and then went to the ranger show: Ranger Chris, talking about the parks geologic origins. Ranger Chris was from Kentucky and his speaking style reminded us of our President: short sentences pitched higher at the end, with pauses in between. But despite that his content was good and we enjoyed the program. Then it was off to bed in our cozy cabin.