We slept in a little bit on the 14th and then packed all of our stuff up to move to Fishing Bridge RV Park near Yellowstone Lake. The drive from Cody into Yellowstone is beautiful. It is amazing to see a of the remnants of the 1988 fire and how the park has recovered so much from the fires. We pulled into the campground around noon and took our place in the very back of the park, which I think they reserve for trouble makers. We were surrounded by a group that were all flying their Wisconsin Badger and Packers Flags. 
For the most part the cheeseheads behaved as they had plenty of PBR to keep them quiet.
As soon as we had lunch we got in the truck and took a drive through Hayden Valley where Joy got to see a bunch of buffalo. 
We also visited the thermal features which included the bubbling mud, which Joy loved.
I am never impressed with bubbling mud or hot springs, but I always get a kick out of crop dusting the spectators had have them think they are taking in a natural Yellowstone stench. 
July 15th marked the opener on the Yellowstone River and there were plenty of people out fishing it. As soon as AJ and Joy decided to take a nap I took the 10 minute drive to a stretch below LeHardy Rapids. I spoke with a few people who said that they weren't having much luck, but the few fish that they saw caught were big. I picked a spot away from the big crowd and while walking to the river I saw a fish rise. I tied on a salmon fly and on my first cast hooked a monster cutthroat. I was using the little 4wt rod that Dave found in the Ausable and couldn't turn that brute. I caught up to him after he took me about 75 yards downstream and had him dead to rights. I was approaching another fisherman and decided to try to horse him through the current and pulled the hook out. The guy standing there watching me fight it said that it was considerably bigger than a 24 incher he had seen landed earlier that day. Andrea and Joy came back down to the river after dinner where I fished for about an hour. 
I had one other hookup which immediately broke me off. The next morning I hit the river at sunrise to try one more time before we moved camp to Gardiner. There wasn't much rising so I put on a large stonefly nymph and quickly had a strike. It was another beast and I followed him downstream in the current just as far as the one I chased the night before. However, with no other fisherman on the river I was able to play him longer and was able to get him in the net. He was a football shaped 24" cutt. 
I only fished about 30 more minutes and then went back to get the girls as we needed to break camp for Gardiner.
After we packed up we drive down to hike in to Yellowstone Lake at Storm Point. We did this hike last time and AJ loved it. The views are amazing and we were able to see a ton of yellow-bellied marmot and one buffalo which we encountered on the trail while waking out. We came out of a creek bottom and noticed that thing was walking right down the trail towards us. We got off the trail behind a deadfall and let him pass. As we were watching him walk down to the creek another family came waking down the trail while looking at the lake. I finally realized that the kid in front (maybe 16 years old) did not see the buffalo. I yelled to him to look out for the buffalo. He looked up and then dropped a load in his pants because by the time he realized it he was within 5 feet of the buffalo. Joy loves telling this story!!!
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