Fishing, Gone.

Just a few miles north of the Artists' Paint Pots, we came to the middle road in the figure 8 Grand Loop around Yellowstone. We hadn't taken it before, so we used it to cut across the park and return closer to our campsite. There either wasn't much to see along this road, or our energy levels were finally running out; we didn't stop anywhere along the way. But we did make a stop at the other end of the road, at the Fishing Bridge. This was a spot we'd passed on our way into Yellowstone two days earlier, but we'd skipped by it then in favor of setting up our tent.

Fishing Bridge is one of the more ironically named landmarks in Yellowstone. In decades past, the bridge was a prime spot for (duh) fishing, as spawning fish in the Yellowstone River passed through in huge numbers. The spot was so popular, in fact, that by the 1960s, the fish population had been utterly decimated. Fishing in the area was banned early in the 1970s, in time for the fish to bounce back over the decades.

We walked the length of the bridge and checked out the observation points at either end.

We gazed intently into the waters hoping to see something. But the rather murky cast and the time of day we were there didn't leave us much to see. So we soon were on our way back to our camp site.

It was only about 3:30 in the afternoon. Plenty more daylight left. But we'd seen nearly everything we'd set out to see. Neither of us seemed much in the mood for a long hike. But neither did it make sense to us to just sit around the tent for hours and hours doing nothing. So after a brief discussion, we decided to pack it in. We had originally planned to leave Yellowstone the next morning, but we realized if we left then, we'd get home around 1 or 2 in the morning. It would be a long drive, but worth it to get back to our soft bed.

We had the tent put away in a flash, and soon we were on our way home after a fun, whirlwind tour of Yellowstone National Park.