We were a little lazy getting up in the morning, but since we were only going around the corner to photograph the sunrise, it worked out for us. We had planned to photograph the sunrise over the mountains from the road, but we lucked out when we pulled off the road and found that there was a hidden trail hugging the side of the mountain we could hike down. Unfortunately, there was more cloud cover than was desirable, but we were able to work with it. We were just left with the feeling that the location needed several days worth of study and photography…and we were leaving.
We had breakfast at the restaurant near camp. I asked for a veggie omelet without the eggs, and the chef sautéed veggies in olive oil and put them over a huge mound of potatoes. It was way more than any normal person could eat and my plate was still half full when I had finished.
Then it was time to pack up camp and be on our separate ways. The time had passed far too quickly and I was sad to say goodbye to Dani, but we decided that this could be a yearly thing…if not meeting at Glacier, maybe me travelling to meet Dani in Banff.
I headed for West Yellowstone, thinking I might camp in the Earthquake area of Gallatin National Forest, but decided against solo camping in those particular campgrounds. I headed into Yellowstone and was surprised to find that all of the campsites between West Yellowstone and Gardiner were already full or closed. Even my go-to campground outside the park in Gardiner was full.
Most of the hotels in town were booked as well, but they were more than I wanted to pay anyways. I decided to head to the laundromat and do some laundry while I made some calls and tried to locate a place to stay for the night. Conveniently, after an inconvenient evening, I found a posting in the laundromat for a new campground several miles down the Old Yellowstone Trail road. They had plenty of room. The only problem was finding them in the dark down an unlit dirt road. It took a while, but I stumbled across them just as I was about to give up. The campground host, Philip was a cheerful, accommodating man who welcomed me, showed me to my campsite and bid me goodnight.
The day had given me a whopper of a headache and it was nearly 9:30 when I finally found the camp, so it was only minutes before I was in my sleeping bag and heading off to sleep.