My Yellowstone Odyessy

Chapter 9

8 Bear Jam

August 24

We were approaching the Snake river picnic area when we spotted a large black animal scampering across the highway, there was barely any traffic on the road this early, but there he was lumbering along, I signaled to Terry, but he had already slowed and was pulling off the highway, I fumbled with my camera with frozen fingers but was able to get a couple shots of Mr. bruin before he disappeared into the woods. I flexed my fingers and waved my arms around to get the circulation going, the waving to Terry, we resumed our ride.

It was around 7:30 when we stopped at the Yellowstone south gate entrance, since we had already paid the National Park fee when we entered the Tetons the ranger just gave me a map and park newspaper which I stuffed inside my jacket. We pulled over to the side and ran back to take pictures of each of us standing in front of the Yellowstone sign, then ran back to our bikes. I wanted to try for Grant Village campground or Bridge Bay, it being at the northern end of Yellowstone Lake. As we neared Lewis lake we saw another bear, only this time it appeared to be a young grizzly ambling along the road, I felt uneasy about this one and yelled at Terry to keep going, we swung way over into the far left lane and maintained a slow speed past him, apparently we must have spooked him because he scooted up the hillside in short order, I got a quick picture of his backside as he ran.

Shortly afterwards we were forced to slow down and eventually come to a stop…Buffalo! There were almost a dozen buffalo wandering along the left side of the highway towards us, I was scared Terry moved slowly off the road giving them the widest birth, I just sat there frozen as these huge animals whuffed and chuffed as they ambled by less that two feet from me. I was even too scared to even try and take a picture lest any movement on my part spook them. Finally they passed, and we could get out of there, soon we arrived at the Grant Village campground, we were coming around the last loop and spotted an empty site, not a great one, but empty, we grabbed it immediately. We quickly unpacked, and set up camp, only one tent, this time.

As I was unpacking my bike it suddenly dawned on me yesterday was Ted's funeral, and I didn't even stop and say a prayer, this troubled me, I felt guilty, "Baby, come over here a minute, help me with this," Terry's call for help snapped me out of my thoughts, Ted slipped from my mind so easily now. I kept my tent packed but my sleeping bag acted as the top half of a double sleeping bag, even though the two halves wouldn't zip together. Was I living a lie to my mother or myself, now that I was sleeping with Terry? Did it matter that we were not "doing anything" how soon would that change? I tried to shove these thoughts from my mind, but they wouldn't leave, was it just a moot point that we hadn't had s*x yet, maybe it would be tonight, maybe the day after tomorrow, when your sleeping with a guy what difference does it make if you let him screw you or not?

These thoughts continued to weigh heavy on my mind for the rest of the day, I wasn't any good at hiding it either, Terry noticed it, even asked me about it, but I didn't want to talk, I tried to pretend otherwise but he knew I was troubled about something. After setting up camp, we rode down to the concession area and ate breakfast at the Lake House restaurant, we browsed around the Hamilton store, bought some postcards a hat pin and some sundries. We rode back to camp stopping to check out the showers on the way, quarter operated again! As we were standing around camp trying to figure out what to do next, a man and woman who were obviously fellow bikers came over and introduced themselves as Larry and Ann Cartwright from Colorado Springs. We introduced ourselves and started talking touring, bike camping and Yellowstone.

When they saw our H.O.G. patches and especially my Ladies of Harley patch, that clinched it, we were invited to their camp this evening to meet with the other people in their group, Ann told me a couple other women belonged to LOH as well and would be eager to chat, looks like our evening was set.