Road Trip Day 16: We Do Some Stuff In Yellowstone

We drove back into Yellowstone today, and:

1) we took a hike on the Howard Eaton trail into the Hoodoos-- and though the roads and main parking areas of the park were crowded, we didn't see a single person out on the trail . . . but we did see some moose scat and a number of fresh bear footprints, pointing the same direction as we were walking;

2) though we didn't turn a corner and run into a bear, we did see plenty of marmots and pikas;

3) we hiked into the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone via Uncle Tom's Trail -- a set of steep switchbacks and three hundred sheer metal stairs . . . and though there was some ominous rumbles and a few flashes of lightning, we didn't end up being a horror story on the Weather.com sidebar: "stupid family dies on vacation";

4) I thought I saw a bear, but it was a bison in a ditch and then we stopped the van because a number of other cars were stopped in front of us, and a guy pointed out a grizzly bear in the distance to Catherine, but it disappeared into some trees before I caught sight of it . . . however, I did get to see a red fox squat in front of our car and poop in the road;

5) a woman told us a herd of moose had come down from the woods into the Mammoth junction area, but she didn't know the difference between moose and elk;

6) we realized that if you want to do three things in Yellowstone, you'll probably only end up doing two of them . . . it's a huge place;

7) after the long drive back to Emigrant, I walked over to the river with my spinning rod, balanced on a slippery log, fought off mosquitoes, and lost several lures to submerged tree branches . . . but it was worth it, because I caught a nice looking rainbow trout.