A cold light rain is pattering on the aluminum roof tonight. It’ll probably turn to snow in a few hours. We’ve been disconnecting the water line at night and switching to the onboard fresh water tank because of the freezing temperatures.

This morning it was partly cloudy, and West Yellowstone warmed up into the low 50s. This constantly changing weather is expected to continue for a few days, but it hasn’t really impeded us. This morning Bert and I headed back into the park to a marshy spot about eight miles north of Norris where he’d seen a cow moose and calf yesterday. The grass was wet and covered with light snow and branches, hard for us to navigate, but it was exactly the type of marshy, protected area that moose love, so we figured she’d still be around somewhere.

As with the Great Gray Owl Hunt, we struck out on finding the moose, but still managed to have a great time. We slogged past muddy moose tracks and forded a small stream, climbed over downed trees and came out covered in wet debris. Bert was mightily disappointed about the mystery of the missing moose and yet we were both glad we’d come out to Yellowstone for another hike. It’s hard to get tired of the place.

Up the road we found some spectacular views of Electric Peak and Sheepeater Cliff, along with Roaring Mountain. A bit further south we dropped in on Norris Geyser Basin and toured a piece of it that I hadn’t seen last week with Eleanor and Emma. Bert and I kept saying to each other, “Yellowstone is just an amazing place!” He’s been here many more times than I, and yet he’s still amazed with it, so I know we’ll enjoy another visit someday.

Today is our last day in the area, so in the late afternoon we all went into town to walk the center of town and see the historic buildings in West Yellowstone. I hadn’t even noticed the collection of old Union Pacific Railway buildings that line Yellowstone Street, nor the little fragment of the original rail line built in 1907 that still remains. But the local Chamber of Commerce has a brochure that describes all the buildings and does a fine job of explaining how West Yellowstone came to be.

The town has always been a terminus of the railroad. It was originally a collection of buildings on land leases in the Madison National Forest, until Woodrow Wilson signed the land over and the town was officially established in 1920. You’d ride the summertime-only “Yellowstone Special” up from Idaho and then hire a stage ride into the park. It was pretty expensive for those days. A stage ride from Norris to Canyon (about 14 miles by today’s roads) was $5.00 in 1915, about equal to $102 in today’s dollars.

Now the railway buildings still stand, even though the railroad was abandoned in 1977 (passenger service ended in the 1960s). The huge and elaborate timber dining hall is on the National Historic Register and is currently undergoing renovation. The depot is now the Yellowstone Museum. The baggage building is now the police station. All of them still have the rustic timber-and-stone construction that predates the quasi-Adirondack “national park rustic” style that was popularized in later decades.

I gathered another professional opinion about our battery charging situation. The advice was to replace the Parallax completely with an Intellipower unit, which has a better reputation for reliability and will also offer 3-stage charging. It’s not a direct-fit replacement, but the cost of the swap is similar to the cost of upgrading the Parallax, so I’m considering that option as well. We can also get a unit that incorporates a true-sine wave inverter suitable for the laser printer (for a lot more money), which I’ll consider but probably won’t do.