Let's Ride

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 Bears Are Where You Find Them

A few miles beyond the south gate, we encountered our first Bear, or rather a bear jamb. Greg and I were forced to slow to a crawl; several "cages" were stopped with their occupants gawking at a young grizzly moving along the crest of a low cut in the road, if he decided to investigate, we would be in trouble. I wanted to get out of there, but Greg insisted of staying a little longer, he snapped a quick picture, just as the bruin decided to see what we were all about. Stuffing the camera in his coat pocket, Greg quickly revved his engine frightening the bear, causing it to scamper into the woods. Some guy yelled at us for scaring the bear, but we ignored him because a park ranger had now appeared on the scene.

Greg and I eased out of the line of cars, and moved off down the highway. A little while later, we turned into the Grant Village campground, glancing off to the left, I spotted some other bikers camping over in another loop, but our concern was on finding an open site, of which there were none at the present time. In our tour of the campground, we passed the group of bikers and waved, "Stop back after you get a site," they shouted. We stopped near the entrance to the campground, Greg and I carefully scanned the campers, looking for any sign they might be pulling up stakes. We were about ready to give up hope when Greg spotted red taillights off in the second loop, people were leaving, we quickly moved out towards the vacant site, turning in, and "claiming" the site, we beat a "cage" by a minute. Greg wasted no time filling out the permit, and sticking the money in the envelope and sticking it in the box. We began to unload our gear, setting up the tent only took a few minutes preparing our sleeping bags took a little longer. I crawled inside, and spread out the inflatable mats, then my bag as the bottom Greg's as the top pillows and an extra blanket.

After finishing up, we walked over to where the other bikers were camped. There were four couples all from Michigan, and HOG members, we introduced ourselves. The group was from Grand Rapids, Allen and Terri Yates, Mark and Christy Arnold, Ed Clark and Emily Cosgrove, and Eric Deavers and Rachel Cook. We talked for awhile, then planned a party Greg and I offered Beer, hamburger buns and chips; the festivities were planned for 7:00pm so we had time to get in a little touring. Greg and I took our leave, and headed back to our site. We finished up a few details, then rode out, Old Faithful bound. The campground was roughly eighteen miles from Old Faithful, we were forced to keep our speed down, because of the traffic, we had shed our jackets, both our vests displaying large HOG emblems on our backs as well as rockers with "Northern Utah Chapter" on them. I also wore a large Marine Corps emblem on the front, as well as a "Ladies of HOG" patch. Greg wore a similar "US Army" emblem as well as a "Road Captain" patch. We passed and were passed by dozens of other bikers Yellowstone was a true "bikers" paradise.

Finally, we turned into the Old Faithful parking lot slowly circling until we found an empty spot. We were still fooling around when the famous geyser erupted, so it looked like a wait was in store. We hiked around some of the upper geyser basin, there were a couple buffalo munching on grass nearby so that was an added bonus. We returned to the viewing area just in time to watch Old faithful erupt, while watching it I recalled a bittersweet memory, the year my mom and brother were killed, dad had promised to take us all here to Yellowstone, I was 17 at the time, so this was the last time we would probably all be together as a family, my brother was 14. As I stood there snapping photos, I thought of mom and brother Torry, We returned to our bikes, continued a short distance up the road to the lower geyser basin, and poked around. We saw some stupid kid screwing around and almost fall into a bubbling mud pot, Greg snarled at him "Dumb f**k kid" the boy quickly ran off. We took the obligatory pictures of each other standing in front of steaming pools of scalding water, before returning to our bikes, we stopped at the visitor center and made reservations for the day after tomorrow for a trail ride up at Canyon junction, I told Greg I hadn't ridden a horse since I was sixteen, "Actually I rode a little when I was in Afghanistan, we made a short recon patrol on horseback, but I can't really count it against anything, so I guess we're both in the same boat, babe."