The Excellent Adventures of Todd and Bethany: September 2011

If you want to get into biking Yellowstone is the place to start. All you have to worry about are wild animals, big bison on the road, elevation climbs from 7000 feet to 8391 feet, and big RVs the sizes of buses. Other than that its a great place to learn. We started in Old Faithful; this day was by far the best day of the trip with steep elevation climbs in order to pas the continental divide twice. The best part was when we would do a hard climb up and then came down half the distance that we had just done, just to go up again. After getting past the continental divide and riding our bikes about 17 miles we went to Grant Village campground set up camp. That night was by for the coldest night we had and combined with sore legs and backs it made for the best night I have ever had (not). I slept hard for the first four hours but after that it was off and on. Bethany did have a great night because she heard something in the night- a deep low breathing sound that bumped the tent. After having an exciting moment she couldn't get back to sleep but decided to sing songs and flash a light. To bad for me I slept through all this. I would have stuck my head out of the tent and greet the bear. (But I think it was an elk, we had a lot of elk in the camp all day.) The next morning we got ready and rode along the north side of the Yellowstone lake. This was a simple ride going about 21 miles. It was also our 1st year anniversary so we got a room at the Lake Hotel and got reservations at the Lake Hotel Restront. Bethany got a buffalo stake and I got sword fish. It was delectable. We later went to the Lake lodge for ice-cream. The next day we went 16 miles to Canyon this by far was one of our most beautiful days because we were not in a tone of trees but could see all through the valley. The funny thing is that we didn't see any bison- in fact we had not seen any bison at all our whole trip. This day being Sunday we went to church. They had an LDS sacrament meeting at Canyon Village outside in the amphitheater. It was fun to have church outside in the trees. We slept in tents that night and then got ready the next day to do our longest ride of the trip. We went from Canyon to Norris (12 miles) then to Madison (14 miles) and then back to Old Faithful (16 Miles). The first 20 miles wasn't that bad but the last 20 miles was a little bit harder. The sun was up and that day was the hottest on our trip but we made it back. For biking that day 42 miles and for finishing our 102 mile bike tour we celebrated by having ice-cream at the Old Faithful Inn.