8400 ft and climbing

No joke when the park services posts signs warning about animals crossing the road. On my way from West Yellowstone to the Madison junction campsite, cruising at about forteen Mph, out of the woods to my right a bison came strolling out onto the road and nearly collided with me, missed him by eight feet, maximum.  Either I tee boned the Bison, which might have provoked it into an unpleasant response with me lying on the ground or still airborne, I veered radically to my left. Fortunately, the big guy sized up the situation and stopped.  Bison tend to be fairly laid back but I have heard stories suggesting otherwise.  The operative phrase here is, "don't trouble Trouble until Trouble troubles you". So anyways, I dodged the bullet and lived to tell the tale.

    The same thing goes for the Bears look for food around the camp site. Anything edible including water, must be place in the steel boxes provided at the sites.  That includes toothpaste and water.  It is a bit unsettling to wake up in the morning to find bear scat thirty from my tent.

     I left Madison at 7am anticipating the three peaks I had to climb and distance I had to cover before reaching a place to re provision.  On the way I jogged a few miles out of my way to see old Faithful which is not so faithful anymore.  Between getting breakfast, joining the hoards to witness the geyser and riding to the designated route, I lost about two hours. Nevertheless, I plowed along climbing three Continent Divide passes of 8200, 8400 and 7900 ft.; all managed without any attitude problem. Exiting Yellowstone park, I entered the John D. Rockafeller, Jr. Highway.  With sixty miles logged in three passes climbed I pulled off into a national park lodge and camping area where set up shop for the night.  The site was nicely wooded but loaded with huge RVs pretending to be "roughing it".  Tomorrow I enter Grand Tetons park and climb another Divide mountain, This one over 9100 ft.. 

       The traffic is treacherous but my new horizontal orange flag attached to my rear pannier frame had been keeping the cars at bay.  The waving orange flag, yellow pannier rain covers and bright clothing makes a clear statement to the passing cars and trucks to give me plenty of room when passing me.  Red necks aside, so far so good.