A Tullyroan Travelogue

We all wake early to a bright, clear and very cold morning. Last night we made it to Deer Lodge, MT. The RV park had a notice to find our own space and to drop the $30 in a letter box. Of course we did, we’re RVers now, and we abide.

The reason it’s so cold is that at 4500ft the air is dry and thin and moisture simply drops out of the air as snow. Like this (you’ll need to look closely):

As is our routine, breakfast is fresh fruit salad, granola and whole nuts, mixed with natural  yoghurt. He’s how it looks:

After breakfast, we work as a team to break down the rig ready for travel.

After that, we settle down to a morning’s drive. Driving the rig in this part of the country is easy, everything is so spread out and there is so little traffic that it’s a joy to swing the coach round the turns and nudge the accelerator until we’re coasting along at 75. Yes, that’s the speed limit here, so no letters please. Today we’re up in the Rockies, and headed for Yellowstone.

I guess there’s two ways of looking at Yellowstone National Park. It’s a place of stunning natural beauty, with forests, rivers, mountains and plains, all full of wildlife like elk, bison, birds and bear. Alternatively, it’s a semi-active volcano with  many signs of unsettled activity which is long overdue a large event, possibly on the scale of an explosion. So a great place to visit on your holidays. Some of the landscapes are positively alien:

This is caused by volcanic hot springs and sulphuric gases which dissolve and then deposit the limestone rock into bizarre stair-like formations. It’s accompanied with the pervasive pong of sulphur, like rotten eggs, and sheets of vapour which rise and drift. To the God fearing pioneers which came across this place for the first time, it must have seemed like hell itself.

For us, you can get a nice picture: