Let's Ride

Chapter 9

Up near winter creek Greg wanted to try his hand at fishing again, so we pulled off at a picnic area, and started hiking down the creek. Greg caught a nice trout early on, but he was about ready to give up when we heard a rustling noise not far away. A black bear, in a sort of cinnamon color, came shuffling down the opposite of the creek. "Back away slow and easy," warned Greg, "Don't make any sudden moves." The bear seemed to notice us, but made no overt moves toward us as yet. Slowly we eased our way back the way we came being careful not to trip over any rocks. "Drop your creel Greg," I said, "Maybe that bear will be satisfied with that?" "I'm not giving up my only fish for some damn bear, now keep moving, he's still sniffing around by those rocks." I was almost to the road, I could even hear cars going by when I heard Greg suddenly start running, that was my cue, both of us came bolting up a small embankment onto the highway, the bear was right on Greg's heels as we dashed across the highway. The bear came right up the embankment after Greg, a pick-up truck coming down the road damn near hit the bear but was able to slam on his brakes in time. The bear scooted backwards, and began to run back down the embankment. The occupants of the truck and a following car, quickly jumped out of their vehicles for some bear pictures.

Looking back, I saw more cars slow down to gape, the bear was long gone, but these yahoo's acted like he was just around the bend a little. We waited a few minutes until the bear jamb cleared out then continued on. We spent some time at Mammoth Hot Springs, the lower terrace, upper terrace; we took pictures of an elk lounging on the lawn at old Fort Yellowstone. We ate a late lunch at the hotel, then rode up to the stone arch at Gardiner. We got a man to take a picture of us sitting on our bikes right under the arch, then quickly had to move for a cage coming through. We then headed back south to Mammoth, then east across the Blacktail Plateau cutting south along a one-way scenic road winding down to Tower Junction.

Greg tried fishing again at a creek south of Tower falls; he had a couple bites but no luck. A little farther south, we stopped along the Yellowstone River Greg got lucky this time an caught another trout. It was getting near dusk, so we hauled down to the Bridge Bay Marina, found a cleaning station and cleaned the trout. We ate a "candlelit" dinner at a nearby picnic area because we were leery of leaving any fish smell around our tent When we got back to camp, Greg noticed a ranger talk going on at the amphitheater, so we trotted over there to hear a talk on wild flowers of Yellowstone.

I didn't care a whole lot about wildflowers, I knew of a couple different varieties, but that was about it, as Greg and I sat listening, I kept getting distracted by a couple of teenagers sitting behind us giggling and whispering, from time to time I would glare at them but it had no effect. Other people pretended they didn't exist, but I swear they were trying to screw in public or something; anyway, it was getting annoying. Later, after the talk Greg and I stopped at the restroom before returning to our camp, as I entered the women's part my favorite couple were in the bathroom pawing at each other, and swapping spit, enough was enough, "If you two wanna f**k do it in your own tent, Christ! Don't you two believe in any kind of privacy?" I must have finally shamed them because they darted out of the bathroom almost knocking Greg down. "What was that?" Asked Greg, "They were those kids making out behind me; I don't know what the idiots were trying to do in here?" Greg laughed, "Yeah I'll bet you're as pure as the wind driven snow on that account," that comment got him a punch in the arm, Greg just chuckled, "Shall we go do what they only wish they could do?" I snickered, "Lets!"

For some reason every night seems to alternate between being just cold to being super cold, both of had planned on getting an early start today, but we just couldn't start our "motors" sitting up and dressing was out of the question, "Damn!" said Greg, "This is worse than Iraq," "Almost as bad as Afghanistan," I added. Dressing required dressing completely under the sleeping bag which was starting to fail in it's duty. Cold hands trying to play with my privates and boobs didn't help either, finally I said "f**k this!" sat up let the full shock of the cold hit me and finished getting dressed. I headed back to the bathroom and who should be there but miss "hot pants" "Well d'ja get any last night sweetie?" I asked. "N-nno-o-o, he couldn't get it up, too cold." "Ah that's the way it goes sometimes," miss "hotpants" glared at me and ran out.