Yellowstone National Park has been one of our favorite places to visit over the years, so we were excited to push south through Gardiner, Montana and into the park’s north entrance.  But our excitement didn’t last long once we were informed by the park ranger at the entrance that the campgrounds were essentially full.  What?!?!  But there are 1,700 campsites in the park, aren’t there?  And it’s the 15th of September, isn’t it supposed to be “off-season”?  There are indeed 1,700 sites in the park and it was indeed the 15th of September, but as we were about to learn, our camping options would be very limited.  We parked just inside the entrance and called the reservation desk and we were “lucky” to find a site at Bay Bridge Campground, about 50 miles from Gardiner and an equal distance to the prime fishing areas located in the northeast quadrant of the park.  To make a long story short, we took the site and headed through one-lane construction to Bay Bridge to claim our assigned site (correct, assigned).  Bay Bridge has 432 sites spread out over 6 loops.  You’d think the campground was massive, but it’s not, it just has a ton of sites crammed into a very small area…combat camping at its worst.  We made the best of it, and were “lucky” again on the second night when we scored a site that had been cancelled, and although we had to pick up and move, it was still our best option.  To make issues more challenging, a campground 20 miles to the south with 400 sites had just closed for the season that day, so we knew the inventory had just been substantially diminished for that Sunday night.  Again, we made the best of it, but camping inside the park may now be one of our least favorite things to do.  And I thought when Johnny and I got chased out of our campsite up at Slough Creek by a grizzly bear some 15 years ago was challenging.  At least that comes with a great story, and for those of you that have heard it, it is all very true.  Fun to recap the story now, but we came fairly close to becoming a Yellowstone grizzly statistic.  I managed to sneak in 2 hours of fishing on my favorite water, the Soda Butte Creek early one afternoon.  Not a very good time to fight the other fisherpeeps, but time on the water is always good nonetheless…it still beats working.  I fought through 40 mph gusts and managed to hook a couple decent cutties on a grasshopper pattern, so it was all a worthwhile excursion.  MJ loved all the sand that got blown in her face and hair, so she put up a good fight back at the campsite that was at least as good as the fight from the cutties earlier that day.  Check out the pano picture in the top right below…that’s the view from Dunraven Pass looking down on the world’s largest caldera, the so-called “super volcano”.  The geologists that are studying it say that a massive explosion, the likes of which we have never seen before, is overdue to happen.  Apparently, the waters of the massive Yellowstone Lake (the largest alpine lake in the world), which sits adjacent to the caldera, are rising about one foot per year.  That essentially means that the ground is percolating quite heavily below it, a sure sign that an explosion is inevitable.  Scary stuff.  On the less scary side, I made an oyster mushroom risotto on the grill the first night, and a hearty chicken-ham stew the second night.  Both were very satisfying meals, with much of that satisfaction coming from seeing the look on our neighbors faces that were only feet away from us.  One couple, only feet away, had wieners that they were roasting over their fire…totally ghetto!  It was all about the showboating, and not necessarily about the quality of the meal.  I wore my Pats apron proudly, although I was completely unaware that our Patriots had just got their asses kicked by the Jaguars early that day.  They are officially 1-1, and I am officially off the bandwagon, like every typical New England fan.  I will come back and support them when they are 6-1, not until.  That’s the price of winning, folks.  If you are an Eagles fan, you will figure that out in another 2-3 decades, if you are lucky.  In summary, when we return to Yellowstone in the future, we’ll either make a reservation at a campground or we will stay in their moderately-overpriced lodging.  We are so spoiled with the places that we have been over the last 6 weeks that we will never settle for combat camping ever again.   Regardless, Jellystone, we still love you and we always will.