DAY TEN - Yellowstone, NP
I woke up in the middle of the night, before Michael’s first time up. Not sure what time it was, but I could hear Nora whimpering in her sleep. She had kicked off her blankets, of course, so David got up and brought her into bed with us and turned on the furnace. Just as we were falling back to sleep, Michael started crying, so I fed him and put him in bed with us, too. Good thing it’s a queen mattress. We slept pretty well until about 6:30 when it started hailing and David got up to check that it wasn’t too windy to leave the awning out. Nora woke up, too, and started talking a lot. We got her quieted back down around 7 a.m.. just when the coach battery was finally all used up. We had the furnace set pretty low, but it used up all the juice running the blower those few times. We might not have noticed, but our carbon monoxide detector starts beeping when it doesn’t have enough battery power. So whenever the battery gets run down, we are jarred awake by the beeping. David got Nora up and they started making breakfast, but I was a wimp and stayed in bed until it was 8 a.m. and we were allowed to turn the generator on again.
After breakfast we put the dogs on leashes and the kids in backpacks/frontpacks and walked to the campground office. We were contemplating leaving early if the weather was going to be a problem. There was a sign posted on the bulletin board advising that some of the roads in and out of the park were closed, and the ones we were likely to use (the west and south entrances) were “snow tires required.” We don’t have snow tires, but we weigh a lot. I inquired at the counter whether we were trapped in the park. The man explained that they have to post the signs, but that the west and south entrances were easily passable. He said the ground is too warm to sustain any accumulation of snow or ice, so even though it snowed yesterday and is supposed to snow today, it wouldn’t stick. He said not until late October is there a chance of becoming snowed into the park. He also said yesterday and today would be the worst days for the weather, and then things would improve. So we are sticking to our original plan of staying four nights here. I also found out from him where we get propane, because we will probably need to refill our propane tank. Without an electric hookup, we have to run the refrigerator off the propane. The propane also heats the air in the furnace (the battery or generator runs the blower) and the stove is also propane. We cook almost every meal on the stove. Fortunately it is only about 15 miles to get propane. We are going to get some tomorrow. Today we are determined not to drive anywhere.
We walked the campground, brought the dogs back to the camper, and set out on a hike to see the elk down by the river. (Pets aren’t allowed on hiking trails here, partly because they attract bears.) We made it about 40 yards with Nora walking and whining and complaining when we decided we should go back and eat and have naptime before trying to get her to walk anywhere. We kept asking what was wrong and she couldn’t tell us, but I guess she was hungry because halfway through a granola bar she was her old cheerful self again. We’ll try the hike again in the afternoon.
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We saw the elk, but we needed our binoculars to see them. It was a nice hike, though. It’s been a peaceful day. We had a nice dinner (with wine even!) and braced for another cold night. Because we didn’t drive anywhere today and we didn’t run the generator a whole lot, either, and because it’s quite cold, the battery still didn’t have much power at bedtime. We put Nora to bed above the cab, and we played cards for awhile. When it was time for us to go to bed, we set up the PackNPlay on the couch like old times. It’s warmer on the couch than above the cab. I put an extra blanket on her and on Michael. We ran the furnace full blast just before we turned in for the night, and that was it for the battery. So we knew we had to make it the whole night with no more furnace. It wasn’t as cold as the night before though. Or maybe we are just adjusting to the cold.