Saturday, we woke up and got breakfast as usual. We drove out to the Lake and tried to see if we could get on a scenic cruise for free. Xanterra employees can ride free on any tour vehicle on a space available basis. In the end, they only had one space open when the tour started so we did the Natural Bridge Trail. At the actual bridge, the information sign was kind of funny because they are usually talking about how incredible and special each thing in Yellowstone is, but this one just told us how the bridge was created and how much better the natural bridges are in Utah. Daniel found this particularly hilarious.
One thing I enjoy about Yellowstone is how friendly some people are. At work I get people telling me to look them up if I am in their area or giving me advice on the good areas of Tacoma and Seattle. One lady has offered to let me borrow her cooler for our box lunches for long weekends. Saturday, there was a guy that told us about a baby raven nest and let us use his binoculars to have a closer look. I kind of regretted that though. Baby ravens are just as ugly (if not uglier) than their mothers. Anyway, natural bridge, though apparently puny, was very cool.
The hike went faster than expected so we had a little time to kill before the next tour started so we had lunch. At lunch we decided to just get a rowboat instead. The plan was just to pay to reserve our spots if we thought it would be too much of a hassle to try to get open spaces, after all, even without our discount the cruises were very affordable. But rowboats are free for us with our employee IDs so we just decided to go with those. Dave Ramsey approved!
Uhmm, rowing is hard. Neither of us is no longer confused as to why it is an Olympic sport. After realizing that our hour would be wasted if we were passed out from exhaustion 100 feet from the dock by rowing individually, we tag teamed the oars and made great progress. We tried to sync our oars by singing "Row Row Row Your Boat", failed miserably, and ended up singing "Rowwww...Rrrrowwww....Rooooooooww....Row" in funny voices. But by the time that we headed back to the dock we were basically expert rowers. We even got a really sweet compliment on our docking skills from the boat guy! Although he didn't hear Daniel yell "Brace for impact!" when we crashed into the dock...
Row boating was a wonderful new adventure.
We were supposed to relax after our water experience but Daniel really really wanted to to Elephant Back Trail. It's a 3.6 mile hike near the lake. I don't have much to say about it except that it was a hard 2 miles uphill to an 8600 foot overlook, but worth it in the end coming down the 1000 foot descent and to see the lake in the distance with the beautiful mountains in the background.
After the hike we lived out a fantasy we both had of being guests at the Lake Hotel, sitting in the Sun Room and sipping drinks while looking at the lake. It's a much cheaper fantasy to have when you don't have to pay for a room! We also put our names on the wait list for dinner. The wait was an hour and a half but we were having fun pretending to be guests so it was no problem. The highlight of my night was the string quartet playing in the Sun Room. We basically had front row seats to a free concert. They played all kinds of music and it made me miss playing my violin soo much!
After dinner at the Lake Dining Room, we headed home. I think it will go in my Top 10 Best Days Ever :)
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