Leg 3 Yellowstone

Well, it’s off to Yellowstone, almost reluctantly leaving our great camp in Grand Tetons. Saturday 6/06 we head off. As you might notice, we are a little behind on our journal/blog, but we are so very busy and having so very much fun it is difficult to keep up. I might wax philosophically and introspectively for one second, hopefully not sounding corny. There is barely a day goes by that Shelle and I don’t thank our lucky stars and greater being for the phenomenal blessing we are experiencing. Never ever do we take any of this wonderful adventure for granted. To have the health, to have the means, to have the time, and to both greatly enjoy equally the experience is phenomenal. We are truly grateful!

The drive to Yellowstone is an experience itself, very pretty. Most of it a pretty good drive but also some very challenging construction, one lane bumpy dirt, but it goes well. 3.5 hours to get to West Yellowstone where we stayed at Lionshead resort, along with about 40 other Hitchhiker trailers like ours. We had planned Yellowstone ourselves and then our fellow Hitchhiker owners who talk on a forum on the Internet decide on this get together. What a hoot to meet all these people in person.

Here is our overall impression of Yellowstone:
· Geysers – tons of geysers (we though just “Old Faithful” and a few more)
· Thermal areas – steamy/bubbly/stinky/weird/pretty
· Many lush meadows, most with meandering brooks, some with wildlife
· Lots of forests
· Lots of, tons of area (this makes seeing the park really challenging and time consuming)
· Lots of traffic (and jerks that stop in the middle of the road so they can take a picture)
· Big
· Beautiful

West Yellowstone is actually in Montana as is a very small portion of the park. The town of West Yellowstone is kind of interesting, definitely has the flavor of being in the real west, but also has the flavor of a tourist stop, which of course it is. The west entrance to Yellowstone is the most popular and fuel prices and camp ground fees reflect that.

We spent 9 days here and were never without something to do. On top of our touring of the park we had mega activities with our fellow Hitchhiker folks. Pot luck dinners, pizza night, cowboy breakfast, a local rodeo (hence the opening patriotic shot), Shelle and I hosted a breakfast in a bag (make omelette's in a zip lock bag and boil them) for 80 plus folks, and a talent night, emceed by Shelle and of course a few uke tunes by yours truly. What a wonderful bunch of people. Mike Mitchell, the CEO of Hitchhiker, visited with us for 3 days, nice treat.

Here is a picture of camp from out back, all those white things are Hitchhiker trailers.

Another part of camp.

There was a cool nature trail just outside of camp and Roxy really loved to go exploring, what great fun she had.

Busy beavers built this big beaver home. Saw lots of signs of beavers but did not spot any in our travels.

We saw lots of elk but this little baby fawn was precious. It was just full of vim and vigor and Mom was just tolerant. The little guy did finally get some breakfast!

Yellowstone is definitely about geysers and thermal activity. It is simply amazing to see all this thermal stuff going on everywhere. This stop is called "Painters Pot" with lots of thermal activity. The ground around the area is not safe to walk on, thin crust in areas, and the water is scalding hot. The park has built wonderful wooden walks so we can go around and peer at the amazement of this area. All that white stuff you see in the pics is steam .

Here is how this site got it's name, Painters pot. Fascinating to watch, almost mesmerizes one.

And more stuff like this:Looks kind of outer spacey. Imagine stumbling onto this years ago, whew. Even in modern times there have been a few idiots who tried diving into one of these pools, only once then it is bye-bye forever.

And then some other sights we liked:

On one of our adventures we came across this big boy, what a majestic animal (elk).

Waterfalls abound, I can't remember this one's name but I do remember what happened just before this stop. We had spotted a bear, actually a bear and a cub, stopped the truck to grab a shot, opened the back door and kaboom my camera dove out of the truck. I think to my great credit it should be know that I only uttered one swear word and a mild one at that! The camera was O.K. but the lens committed suicide. Now since I had been thinking of a new camera and a different lens.......... trip expense! (New D300 and 18 to 200mm lens were delivered to Cody and waiting for us when we got there! Made do with old Kodak until then. Mom always said "there is a reason for everything"!). We never did get a bear shot but we did get to see a few. Here is the waterfall, I think it might be Tower Falls.

Here are a couple of shots from the rodeo we went to, what a Montana/Wyoming thing to do!

And I love this one, they had a break and ran some stuff for the kids. This little guy was running to join in, isn't he just full of it!

On the way to see "Old Faithful", a whole field full of geysers. Looks almost like a forest fire, nothing but steam.

And of course we need a shot of the signature geyser, Old Faithful right on time:

One of our favorite things to do was try to find some of the roads less traveled. Yellowstone has several side roads that are really wonderful. On this one we found an undesignated place to stop, hiked around and found this remote spot to have a private picnic on the Firehole river, one of our personal highlights of Yellowstone.

Our view up river:

And down river:On the way out of Yellowstone we drove past Yellowstone lake. This lake is huge, it just goes on forever. And blue, very blue maybe representing almost the full spectrum of blue. And as the first pic shows, still have thermal activity all around the lake.And finally, I know long chapter - big like Yellowstone - for my lovely granddaughter Madison: