Into Yellowstone.....

(CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE)

7:12 am (Mountain Time) - Friday - 53º F, humdity 67%, wind 5 mph out of the southwest......forecast high is 66º F.......chance of rain.

We reported for our North Delaware orientation about 7:45 am and were each given a stack of paperwork to complete along with our employee ID card, name tag, and a nice Yellowstone fleece jacket.  In all our orientation was 6+ hours.....a lot of information was being poured into my brain, and by 2 pm my eyes were glazing over.....:-)  The one thing that was burned into my brain is the North Delaware motto......"Creating special experiences one guest at at time".

We were finally dismissed about 2:15 pm......TLE and I walked back to the coach, put the car back in the trailer, fired up the DD and began the 54 mile trek north to our final destination for the summer......

 Madison River

......just after passing through the West Yellowstone entrance to the park the views were immediately captivating....

 Gibbon Falls

Just as we reached the Madison Junction where we would turn left to continue on US-89 our friend Art pulled up to our right as he was turning right to continue on to Yellowstone Lake where he will spend his summer......we waived back and completed our left hand turn.....always a little bittersweet.....

Steam 'vents' everywhere

.....the first 34 miles were uneventful, and the traffic was not as bad as I expected.....that is, until we hit a road construction zone with 20 miles to go......we waited in line for about 20 minutes watching the line of cars building behind us.......

 I'm glad I didn't now what was coming....

.......finally, it was our turn and thus began the five mile slog through the construction zone which had been reduced to a one lane dirt road for 99% of that distance.......there were places where I had maybe 6 inches of clearance on each side of the Newell/trailer.....very little margin for error.......

 .......5 miles of this

.....finally we were back on pavement, but then the next fun zone began.......4 miles of twisty 6% downhill grades with multiple hairpin turns.....before making our 4+ mile descent we had climbed to over 7,700' elevation.......Mammoth Hot Springs sits at approximately 6,735' elevation.   At last we made Mammoth Hot Springs at just after 4:15 pm.....2 hours to traverse 54 miles.

We found a place to park, and I just kind of sat there, closed my eyes and tried to let the tension of the past 2 hours recede into the background.  Eventually we put on our good clothes and walked over to the Mammoth Hot Springs General Store, where we will be toiling the rest of the summer, to meet our manager who, thankfully, was still in at 4:30.  She told us to report for work Friday at 1:30 pm to get our in store orientation.......

Our place of toil for the balance of the summer....Mammoth Hot Springs

.....next up we walked about 2 blocks to the Mammoth Clinic to make appointments for our drug testing Friday (9:30 am) and then walked back to the Newell to drive the last 5 miles to our RV site for the balance of the summer........as we walked I called up Yellowstone RV Park to be sure they were expecting us, and they were, but they were not aware of what equipment we had.  When I told the nice front desk lady the Newell was 36' long, and we also had a 26' trailer she paused a long time.......the long pause is never good, right?  Apparently there had been a miscommunication between them and HR as to our needs.  

Well, I got in the driver's seat, turned over the 6v92, and we began the last part of our drive.  As we pulled out of our parking spot I had no idea what awaited us over the next 5 miles......

2 mile, 7% grade into Gardiner, MT......Yellowstone River on right

.....within a block we began a 2+ mile descent on a twisty 7% grade decline.......more white knuckle time for moi.....as you can see there is NO shoulder on this narrow two lane road......my clearance was less than 8" on each side.  After putting close to 56,000 miles on our behemoth over the past 9 years there is not much that puckers me up anymore, but this downhill definitely got my adrenaline flowing.

We arrived at Yellowstone RV park around 4:45 pm and checked in at the office.  I'm glad I called ahead as they had to scramble to find us a spot that would fit us.  I told them I was willing to drop the trailer in a different location within the park if we could not fit everything into our assigned site, and they gave me a temporary location to do just that.  We drove down the hill into the park and stopped by the spot where we were to drop the trailer.  We then walked down to our site, and it appeared we would fit in the 60+ foot pull through site, so we called the office and advised we believed we could fit in the site, and were given permission to try.....

Site 11, Yellowstone RV Park 

.......we did manage to get into the site with the trailer, but you know there is more, right?

Our site is a full hookup site, but it only has 30 amp electrical service.  The site they had planned to put us in (too small) did have 50 amp electrical service, and that was the last one they had.  So, we will spend the summer living on 30 amps, which we have done in the past, and can do for the summer.  Life is about adjustments, and we shall adjust to our new circumstances.  

We were partly set up by 6 pm, and I called it a day......the electric, water and sewer are connected, and the rest can wait.....time for 'Happy Hour'!

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