Surfing the gap

We are at the Canyon Campground, near the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (map).

Frankly, I did not expect to get on-line here; satellite imagery and anecdotal evidence all pointed to too much tree cover, and we knew our space was pre-assigned when we booked it yesterday morning, with no consideration for access. Nevertheless, we got extremely lucky, and we are on-line courtesy of a narrow gap in the trees in exactly the right direction. Had they put us in any other loop, with the roadway in any other orientation, we'd likely not be on.

The downside to this loop is that it is about as far away from everything as is possible to be here, but, hey, that's what the scooters are for. So we took them out just as soon as we arrived here about noon. Once we figured out that we had satellite access, we zipped right back down to the check-in about a mile away, and asked if the space was also available tomorrow night. It's not, so I booked a night at Bridge Bay, south of here, where I am also expecting to be off-line. We'll see how it goes.

That put us out and about on the scoots early in the day, and we rode through the little village, checking out the restaurant option for tonight (looks fine), the stores, and the visitor education center, which did live up to expectations. It was relatively warm (we're at 8K feet here, and there are still piles of snow throughout the campground) and sunny, and so we then rode down to Artists Point and took in the spectacular beauty of the Grand Canyon. June is the wettest month here, and the volume of water cascading over Upper and Lower falls was quite a sight.

We've now taken in most of the sights in this area, as North Rim drive is closed this season. So I don't feel too bad about spending only a night. In fact, we had planned to move Odyssey down to the visitor center parking tomorrow after checkout, while we rode around the area; now, however, I am thinking we'll load the scooters at checkout time and head to Lake Village, to get a mid-day start there tomorrow, too.

Tomorrow night at Bridge Bay will be our last night in the park; with any luck, there will be some space available at one of the half-dozen Forest Service campgrounds east of the east entrance Sunday night. If not, no big deal, as it's only another 45 minutes to the Wal-Mart supercenter in Cody, where we'll need to stop anyway for many sorely needed supplies.