Nancy, Where Are You?

Elk on the hill

   Yesterday (5-10 Thurs) we got up at 5 a.m. so we could leave for the Lamar Valley at 5:45. Cindy from the kitchen/wrangler and Dan (reservations) went with us. We saw some wolves, red dogs (bison calves), a black bear and of course the usual elk and bison plus we saw two moose! We drove almost to Sliver Gate then turned around to head home. All of a sudden I lost power steering. We were able to pull to a stop. Dan and I got out and looked, naturally I had no idea what I was looking at. We did look at the power steering fluid and it was full. In a minute a car with a couple of men pulled up beside us. They asked if we had lost a belt. We looked and sure enough the belt that goes around all the pulleys was missing. The men drove back down the road and picked it up for us.   We couldn’t put it on because we didn’t have any tools. They went back to the East Gate and told the rangers that we were stuck. Ranger John came out and asked all kinds of questions. He said he would call the Tire Iron (a garage in Gardiner) but we knew they were hauling one of our friends to Livingston that day to have her car fixed. We were right, they couldn’t come for us so Ranger John called the garage at Canyon. In the meantime Ranger Kevin arrived with a big tool chest on the back of his truck.
With the help of Ranger John and Dan they got the belt back on. Then they decided they should take it back off, they said it wouldn’t stay on and it might mess up something in the engine. Ranger Kevin hand pushed our car up a small hill with all of us inside. Ranger John put his hand on the back of the car but we could tell he wasn’t pushing at all. We got to the top of the hill and then coasted down to a “pull off.”   Both rangers left us to wait on the tow truck. As we were sitting there it rained, hailed and finally snowed. The tow truck finally arrived, loaded the car on the back and the four of us into the truck. We then took the hour ride over the Dunraven Pass (which is closed) to Canyon. We saw a huge grizzly along the way and the driver let us get out and take pictures. When we got to Canyon it was snowing heavily. One of the pulleys was totally destroyed so we had that replaced. It only took about 15 minutes. When the car was ready we headed back to Mammoth.   ND got her stuff together because she’s leaving for Washington DC in the morning for her grandson's graduation.
    We picked our friend up around 2:30 in Livingston and the three of us went to Bozeman. We went to two camera stores, a thrift shop and Walmart. We dropped ND off at the Holiday Inn and then headed back to YS. We got here around 8:30. I was ready for bed!