We woke up to our alarm at 3am this morning after about three hours of sleep. We'd carefully planned the wakeup time so that we could arrive at Norris Campground in Yellowstone by 6am. We'd been following a website which publishes the times that the campsites are deemed "full" for the day, and figured that we'd need to be there super early to guarantee ourselves a space. Unfortunately, we'd spent far too long the night before organising a short-notice trip to San Francisco (my work decided they wanted me to provide some on-site support for the office there), and didn't get to bed until about midnight.
The sky started to show some signs of light just after we entered the park. Driving through the wooded roads with the first signs of sunrise beginning to peek through the trees was magical. It was still too dark to see anything other than the trees and the sky properly, but every now and then we'd round a corner and catch sight of a meadow, or a hydrothermal feature venting steam out over the road.
We arrived at the campground at 6am, only to find a queue already forming outside the ranger hut at the entrance. We parked and stumbled out of the car to secure our place in line, I think we were about the 6th party there. We hung around in the cold morning air (it was about 6 degrees), making small talk with the other campers, until about 7am when a park host arrived in a little electric pickup truck. He explained to the now 20-30 person queue how the check-in process worked, what the campground rules were (like don't leave your clotheslines up when you go out, in case elk get tangled up in them!), and then passed out reservation forms for us all to fill out. He assured us that they were expecting about 53 sites to check out today, so there wasn't any concern that we wouldn't get a campsite.
The ranger eventually arrived at about 8am, and the park host started letting people into the hut one-by-one. It was a slow process, but finally, our turn came. Inside the hut, we told the ranger that we were planning to stay for a week, which she was really happy about! She looked through her list of available sites, and after talking to another ranger for a bit about what sites they could give to us versus which ones they would prefer to keep for RVs, they decided on one at the far back of the campground. They said that this one was usually kept aside for RVs because of the nice flat parking pad, but because it was such a beautiful and private site and we were going to be there for such a long stay they'd give it to us!
We headed out past the queue of hopeful campers (well over 50 now, including a line of RVs and trailers that was forming on the road), picked up Anders, and drove up the hill into the campground. The ranger was totally right, this site is fantastic! We set the tent up and promptly fell asleep, the long morning drive, hours waiting in line, and lack of sleep having well and truly caught up with us. We didn't do anything productive for the rest of the day, other than enjoying not being hot anymore!