Day 4: Lake Yellowstone Inn to Old Faithful

    During the night I developed a migraine headache.  I've only had one or two other migraines in my life, so why not get another one while on vacation!  It was soon morning, so I took a few Excedrin and Dawn went to breakfast without me.  Now it looked like both of us would be in too much pain to ride.  Luckily the Excedrin did the trick, and I was able to join everyone else for breakfast a little later.  Dawn decided to try riding despite the pain she was in, and we rode out along the Yellowstone River and towards the upper and lower falls.  
     This morning provided us with our first good views of Yellowstone's geothermal features and a few 'too close for comfort' encounters with bison.
     We saw most of what we would see in Yellowstone in this one day of riding.  We rode north along the Yellowstone River and then turned west towards the Norris Geyser Basin.  We stopped there for lunch and a short hike around the basin, which is a large area of geysers with red, orange, and blue hot pools.
     Next we had to navigate the worst road and traffic conditions we would encounter during the week (with the possible exception of the gravel where we had crashed).  A twelve mile stretch along the Gibbon River had poor pavement, narrow lanes, and a significant amount of traffic.  We pulled to the side each time the opportunity presented itself to let traffic pass, but the strong winds, broken pavement, and poor handling of our new bike made me take the center of the lane at other times.  This section of road alone is reason enough to take wide touring tires if you're planning to ride through Yellowstone.
     We soon intersected the Firehole River and rode along its banks for most of the rest of the day.  We stopped almost every attraction along the road, seeing the Lower Geyser Basin, Fountain Paint Pot, and Midway Geyser Basin.  Hal and Barbara rode at our pace and were also interested in seeing as much as possible, so we spent much of the afternoon together.  
     This being a long and challenging day of riding, we also stopped for a while just to slip our feet into the Firehole River and relax before finishing out the ride at Old Faithful.
     We had a late dinner at the extraordinary Old Faithful Inn.  This enourmous log building is described on the National Park Service web site: "Built during the winter of 1903-04, the Old Faithful Inn was designed by Robert C. Reamer, who wanted the asymmetry of the building to reflect the chaos of nature. The lobby of the hotel features a 65-foot ceiling, a massive rhyolite fireplace, and railings made of contorted lodgepole pine. Wings were added to the hotel in 1915 and 1927, and today there are 327 rooms available to guests in this National Historic Landmark".  You can see a QuickTime virtual reality 360º panorama of this building (and other parts of Yellowstone) at http://www.mountainvisions.com/QTVR/YellQTVR/YellQTVR.html.