Category: Don’t feed the raccoons or bears

Operation Yogi Bear! Yellowstone NP

The morning is crisp and full of excitement!  Finally after all these months we are arriving at our destination – Yellowstone National Park.  I am like a little kid.  I feel butterflies in my stomach, anticipation and happiness.  After months, since October 2015, we are at our destination.  The skies are beautiful blue with fluffy white clouds quietly floating overhead.  What a welcome!

We expected another long drive from Pocatello, Idaho to the western entrance of Yellowstone NP — but it truly was like we flew there.  There was a special line for campers that had reservations so we breezed through to Madison Campgrounds.  The registration process was orderly, full of information, review of regulations and courtesy!  Wow!  What a deal.  The fact we have senior passes for the National Parks it cost us $13 per night!  Can’t beat that.

We, at first couldn’t identify what we sensed was different, but we found that not only was Yellowstone green but CLEAN!  Our campsite was clean, open, roomy, and had a sense of home.  Our son and family was right behind us by about one hour!  Our campsites were adjacent!  This is their first trailer camping experience.  They drove from eastern Colorado and we from coastal California.

It took about an hour to set-up the trailers and then grandpa and grandson set up the cookstove and cooking area, we girls made our seating, eating and relaxing areas livable.  The bathrooms were pristine, fresh, and up to date with even a separate area to wash dishes!  We were in a no hook up area!

I still can’t believe that we are finally in Yellowstone.  We wasted no time to start our sightseeing.  As soon as the campsite was secured and set we started on our must see list.  It was only 2:00 pm and small crowds.  It was very windy but not as cold as we were expecting.  The Paint Pots were amazing!  They burble, spit and steam all at the same time— AMAZING.

More magical than even Disneyland!

Our daughter and family were coming over for dinner this evening and we started our trek back.  It is a glorious start to a truly memory making adventure!  We know our campsite is comfortable, fire pit prepared, smores staples at the ready and the dinner project ready for the children to get started with so we can all have an evening meal!
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Racooned!

As we continue with the story of our Pinnicles National Park 3-day we are on a Sunday walk to the Caves.  It is a beutiful day and we are enjoying new sites we had not seen before.  More people are on the trail but all are courteous and appear happy to be out and about!

We make our way back to our site and note that many of the weekend travelers are gone and it is very quiet.  Oh how wonderful the sounds of nature are.  We do note that we see alot of small racoons and silly black birds looking to clean up the crumbs of the weekend campers. The signs all over the campsites quite clearly state DO NOT FEED THE WILDLIFE, ESPECIALLY RACOONS, they can be dangerous.

We take an afternoon nap and then begin to prepare for our dinner meal.  Our table is set and the new camp stove heating the griddle and feed the dogs.  Our appetizers, chips and salsa with lemonade make for an easy preparation for our dinner.   We had purchased a couple of bottles of Cabernet from Pietro Santo winery to go with our meal and so we open and let it breathe.

Little racoons keep running at the edge of the creek and our table.  My hubby puts his back pack at the door of our trailer and goes back to help prepare our goodies.  A little racoon is quietly unzipping his backpack!  We shoe him away and laugh.  Our evening continues and don’t think anything about it  and proceed with our evening.

As we finish our dinner I see a medium sized racoon approaching us quietly and quickly and almost gets to my sister-in-law!  it frightened us and she jumped up and down screaming at the creature and it finally went away.  We laughed and continued on with the evening!  As the cleanup is complete and we settle in for desert racoons are not on our mind.  We all go to bed and know tomorrow we return back to the rat race!

We had a solid sleep and awakened for our usual al fresco breakfast.  We have our first cappuccino first and while I am dressing I hear a few choice words from outside. I hustle outside to find my husband shaking his head, waving his hands and saying wonderful expletives.  There are tiny hand/feet prints all over the roof of the truck, the cargo over over the bed AND the entire interior of the truck windows etc. !!!!  Luckily we had our H2O cleaning towels and it made it fun, easy and no smells.

The only way in was a two inch opening of the small back truck window!  They broke it by pushing it down?!  After the initial shock and awe we laughed and couldn’t believe how they took every little thing inside and examined it all.  They found my lost bluetooth earpiece, ate all the doggie treats they found in a zipper pouch.  Yes they carefully unzipped the pouch and then took out stuff.  No tearing and no chewing any of material.

After our outside breakfast we began to clean the truck up for our ride home.  This just goes to show you ALL the signs at the park are really, really, REALLY need to be followed cuz it’s true!

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Yet another wonderful trip to put in our book!  Oh yeah, this is a photo of my brothers rig and his stuff no ours!  We followed the rules and we got  attacked!