License Plates

An aside: back in the early 1970's, my Dad and I went to Yellowstone, and while there, we cruised through the parking lot at Old Faithful trying to document as many different license plates as we could. We counted plates from 48 different states, missing only Louisiana and, I think, Maine.

Back to the present: we did not cruise around the parking lot, but we have seen many different license plates nonetheless. All the western states were present, with Montana, Idaho and Utah the most common. Wyoming was relatively uncommon despite the fact that we were actually IN Wyoming; more abundant were Washington and California, and even Colorado. Of all the western states, Oregon was the least common. From this one can only conclude that Oregonians seldom leave Oregon, certain in their knowledge that they would only be disappointed.

All the midwestern states were rerpresented, and so were all the southern central states (even Louisiana this time). Missing from the south were Tennessee and Mississippi, and the two Georgia license plates we saw were both from Gwinnett County.

From the northeast, we saw all but Rhode Island and, again, Maine. Unusually common was New Jersey. Logically, one must conclude that either people in Maine are not aware of Yellowstone, or that they are but that they drive to New Jersey, steal a car there, and THEN drive to Yellowstone. There can be no other explanation.

We saw two Alaska plates but none from Hawaii. I'm guessing that, in the intervening 30-odd years, all the Hawaiians who were capable of driving to the mainland to see Yellowstone have already done so.

Although I don't recall the stats regarding Canadian plates on that first trip, we saw half the provinces on this one. British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec were all present. We presume that both inhabitants of Saskatchewan were snowed in and couldn't make it.

To round things out, we saw one international plate from the Netherlands and one from Germany.

All of the foregoing is to say, Yellowstone seems to attract people from all over, and they all drive through the park at speeds that can't possibly allow them to enjoy it. If you had driven hundreds of miles to see Yellowstone, wouldn't you want to get your money's worth?