cold days, slow days

Not too much has been happening around here the last couples days. When we woke up this morning and heard it was negative 32 (or thereabouts depending on the source), we decided to skip breakfast in favor of staying warm. The cool thing about being in the Old Faithful area when it is this cold the steam from the geysers and hot springs literally freezes in the air so all over the basin there are unmoving clouds hanging in the air

Today's laziness followed on the heels of yesterday's trip to town. We hopped the employee coach to West Yellowstone at 8:45am and made our first footfalls outside of the Park in three weeks at around 11am. Our snowcoach ride was rather painful for me given that we passed the Firehole, Gibbon and Madison rivers and all looked totally fishable.

Our first stop was at the Bear Country Bake Shop to get some drinks and goodies that you can't get in the park--like lattes and cinnamon rolls

From there we wandered the streets, which are kept snow-covered so that snowmobile (or sled) drivers can use the roads. It's a town of less than one thousand people during the winter months and the closed-for-the-season souvenir shops and empty roads make it seem like a lot less

Actually, if there is something West does have a lot of, it's fly fishing shops. There is one on every block so my fellow angler and I thought we would be able to easily find someone to sell us some fly tying material. I knew the West Yellowstone Fly Shop,

home of our favorite guide Travis, was closed for the season, but sadly it seemed shop after shop was closed. Finally we made it to Blue Ribbon and were welcomed in by their two super-friendly dogs. I drooled as the owner told us about the great fishing he had just the day before on the Madison River and had to settle for buying some elk hair that was a direct result of the recent Montana hunting season.

After hitting the fly shop, we again wandered the barren streets

in search of real food. We tucked into the Wild West Pizzeria and were happy to find a solid pie. I still think they put too much cheese on the pizza out here, but I'm starting to complain less and eat more.

After a quick trip to the grocery store so our crew could load up on food and booze we headed to meet the snowcoach that would take us back to the Park. It was hard to leave the world of fishable rivers, TV and fresh pizza behind, but it was nice to get back into the Park, where there seems to be more action, even if we have to manufacture it ourselves.