Yellowstone in a day & 4th of July venison burgers

Wow….Yellowstone in a day!  The day before the 4th.  Brave of us to even try but because of covid probably, there were no 3-mile lines of traffic to all the cool stops.  Most we had to do was drive around a parking lot a couple of times to get a spot.  Hit the highlights:  Mammoth Hot Springs, Grand Prismatic Springs (other worldly!), Steamboat, Old Faithful.  After finding a lucky parking spot at Old Faithful, our timing was impeccable – 4 minutes till the next eruption.  Even more lucky for us was that Beehive Geyser which erupts only once a day every 1 – 3 days erupted only a couple of minutes before Old Faithful, so we had 2 for 1 eruptions!  If we hadn’t been able to snag this eruption, the next was 90” away. 

 Next day, the 4th, was serendipitous.  Another MSF’er had seen my post and said if we were in the neighborhood to drop by.  We were!!  So drove to Ennis (population of 997 people and, 11,000,000 trout).  Apparently it is the fly fishing mecca in the US!  And Jillian’s husband is a fly fishing guide.  We should have planned better and taken a day for a guided fly fishing trip!  Next time Jillian..  So, unexpectedly, we had a typical 4th of July lunch with juicy, grilled venison/pork burgers while watching antelope roam behind their backyard with a backdrop of the Montana mountains.  Couldn’t get any better.  Last time I saw Jillian was in Oakland 3 years ago during our MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Forced From Home exhibit.