FISHING AND HIKING IN YELLOWSTONE | A Summer Adrift | Episode 13

Last time on A Summer Adrift. We enjoyed some time in West Yellowstone before we made our way into Yellowstone National Park for a few days of fishing. In preparation for Yellowstone, I started to try my hand at fly fishing under the tutelage of Amy, but I had yet to catch a single fish. Loaded up with a day's worth of supplies, we headed out to find Yellowstone Cutthroat and with some luck, my very first catch. Finally, I got some action. You got this. You never forget your first fish, but I especially won't forget this beauty. Oh my gosh. I'm petrified and whatnot. Our motto for the day was everyone catches. With my first fish out of the way, we started a rotation. Once you caught a fish, you pass the rod to the next person for a turn. We went on like that all day as we walked upstream back towards the trail that we came in on. This is a big male, big for this section of celebratory milkshake that Chase and Amy had been telling us about for weeks leading up to coming to That's a grist shake? It is. Can we get four? Four of those? They've heard a lot about these milkshakes. We're so excited. After pretending to wait patiently, our milkshakes were finally ready. Before heading back to camp, we grabbed a bite to eat for lunch from another local joint down the street. We wanted to be sure we were supporting small businesses that were undoubtedly being affected by COVID. Trying local food is also one of the simple pleasures that we love to enjoy during our travels. I'm excited. I told her just to pick. I gave her the things that we were interested in and I was like, just pick what you think I should eat. She picked her favorite. Pick what you think. There's a lot. You might do more than sniff that. Oh damn. That's really tasty. Yeah. We enjoyed some downtime with Luna back at camp as the afternoon showers gave us a heavy soaking. Eventually, the storm clouds parted and we headed back into the park for an evening fishing session. Look at you let me pet you. Wow. Adorable. We weren't entirely surprised to find the water murky from the afternoon storms. Oh, she totally looked away. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, we went further down the road and found the river to be in better condition. Yeah, he's got it on the reel. Before we knew it, Owen had hooked into a massive fish. Weigh yourself out. You have three X on which is pretty heavy, so you can give it like a decent amount of muscle. It's like eight pound pesk or something. Okay. It'll take a closer inspection. That might be cutthroat. Yeah, that was definitely a bummer. Oh, I'm so sorry. To this day, Owen says he thinks about losing that fish, so I guess this is the fish that got away for him. Despite my best efforts to redeem Owen, I came up empty-handed as well. Thankfully, Amy was able to turn our luck around. For the last few days, we have been camped outside the northeast gate and are now heading back through the park south on our way back to Jackson for work and packages and all that good stuff, but it's been really fun. Sadly, rainy the last day and a half here in the park, but it's been really beautiful, so we're going to spend the day making the four and a half hour trek down towards Jackson. Luna, what do you think? At this point, we were starting to come to grips with the reality that we weren't going to make it to Alaska this year. Our minds had known that it wasn't going to work out, but it took until this point for our hearts to come to the same conclusion. As sad as we were to abandon those plans, we already had so much to show for our summer, and there was still so much yet to come. If the road has taught us anything, it's that we're resilient and flexible. Now back in Jackson, we picked up our long overdue mail and got some work done. We were excited to finally welcome Peter and Truthy back from getting their transmission fixed, and we added a new team Meet Micah. We met Micah shortly after getting on the road through the Vanagon community. We've had the pleasure of running into him periodically over the years, and this meeting was no different. Driving down the road to camp, we waved at a passing runner. Before we knew it, that runner was running after us down the road. We stopped, and as he caught up with us, we immediately knew it was our dear Micah. We spent the next few days moving slow and enjoying the peak of summer. Come on! Come on! There you go, for sure. Man, she's just like, oh he's holding her butt. It's hanging off the edge of the seat by a lot. This is insane. She is falling asleep. As the moon lit up the Tetons behind us, we settled into a movie night projected onto the side of one of our rigs using Micah's pocket projector. Just as the gang was getting back together, Chase and Amy had to leave to sort out a long-standing issue with their house power system. It had gotten so bad that we were having to run the refrigerator off of our batteries. They planned to install a fresh Battleborn battery system so they could have the power that they need and stop bumming power off of us, even though we were more than happy to share. They promised to return as soon as the work was complete. For days, Micah had been telling us about his quest to make the perfect steak from the van. Apparently, he's gone as far as to make a spreadsheet with comprehensive notes of his trials and errors. Wanting to show us his current progress, he decided to treat us to a steak night. Not ones to turn down such a generous offer, we obliged and sat back for a relaxing evening at our new Creekside camp spot. Looks good. Oh boy. Looks good. All right, Ellen, since you're in here, you and I get to have the first piece. Oh my god, it's so good looking. So yeah, finishing salt, red wine, you're gonna like it. Spoiler alert, I think it was the best steak we've ever eaten. Next time on A Summer Adrift.