Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone!  I love this park!  I could seriously live here.  I want of to go camping for a week sometime.  Any joiners? - By camping, I mean rent a cabin and have all modern conveniences to come back to after a day hiking, exploring etc.


At any rate.  My sign has legs cause people were taking pictures on the other side. 

The first thing I noticed was that the trees were dead!  I thought at first it must be an insect infestation but then it dawned on me that it was from a forest fire.  Not sure when but couldn't be this year.  The ground was so green!

The next thing we noticed was the line of cars that were pulled over with people taking pictures. You know what that means?  Wildlife.  I broke the number one rule of the park.  I admit it. I got out of my car and took a picture of the elk hidden in the woods. They really blend in!

Gorgeous Elk!

Surrounded by trees!

Mom and Tommy were good, they wouldn't get out of the car.  There were actually four or five laying down and walking around in the distance.  This reminds me of what I heard in one of the visitor centers.  A lady came in and was kind of half asking and half complaining about how she hadn't seen an elk and the ranger needed to show her where she would see one.  I was thinking really?  You really think she's going to know where they are?  Sheesh!

We finally got to a more wooded area.  These tall trees amaze me!
We also got to cross the Continental Divide which was really cool and made us think about the James Belushi movie:0 Then we crossed it three more times.  Can you say curvy road? 

The fam at the Divide! 

I also had to look up what the continental divide actually was and how far it extended.  Did you know there is more than one?  The one we crossed is the grand one so it's across the Americas but there are smaller ones around too.

Guess Where?

We then went to see Old Faithful.  We've all seen it before but Tommy loves it so we went again. It was a beautiful day!  I have never hiked the trails around Old Faithful so while Mom and Tommy looked around at the gift shops etc I walked down to take a look at the Morning Glory pool.

Thar she blows!

 I saw many geysers that I didn't even know existed.  I also didn't know about the viewing platform up on the hill that you could hike too!  Next time we are here I am so going to do that!

Don't remember the name of this one but it just started bubbling while I was standing there!

Morning Glory Pool - Living organisms make the color!

 I hiked down the trail towards the Morning Glory Pool and the first thing I saw was a poster stating that a mama and four baby bears had been seen in the area.  Some of that trail is wooded.  I kept my eyes peeled.  Would have loved to see them..from a distance of course.  I did see what I thought were tracks but it was hard to tell as buffalo had obviously been there alot!

Chipmunk : I claim Barf Vader!

 

Mom at Old Faithful

 Barfy was there at the end of the trail to great me.  I have a sneaking suspicion the people before me gave him a little snack.  That doesn't look like a natural chipmunk pretzel.

Castle Geyser

There were many more geysers there.  I had always heard of Old Faithful but didn't know that there was a whole geyser basin!  On the walk I saw many more geysers erupt and I gotta say there were much more faciniting ones than Old Faithful (which incidentally is a rather young geyser) . This one is called Castle Geyser. I caught the tail end of the eruption but check out the rainbow! 

Grotto Geyser

This one was called Grotto Geyser.  It almost looks like a Roman fountain.  I think it may be my favorite! 

Managed to get him to pose for this one.

We went to the lower geyser basin next.  We bypassed the mid basin (later I realized that was the Grand Prismatic Spring was there.... bummer).  Anyhow, Mom's knees were hurting and I knew the lower basin was a level little walk and she would enjoy it.  I also wanted to see Tommy react to the sulphur smell.  Nothing like coming up behind him and saying... "Tommmmmy... what did you eat."  Bad big sister moment.  He thought it was hysterical but practically ran through the walkway to get away from the smell.





On our drive out of the park I saw the animals below.  I didn't get out of the car to take the pic of the buffalo.  He was just too close for comfort.  I rolled down the window and Tommy immediately wanted it rolled back up.  No buffalo for him!  Ha ha








 Not sure if this is a white tail deer or a female antelope.  Whichever her tummy looks like it might have another little critter in it!

 This guy was on a hillside on our way out of Yellowstone.  He saw us looking and decided that he didn't want his photo taken.

We drove to St. Anthony.  We had called the hotel that we were to stay at so she knew we would have a late check in.  When we got there she told us that she had had a flood that morning  and that our room was affected.  But not to worry she would put us in a smoking room . It would be okay as it wasn't used very much...I looked at her like she was a nutjob.  Really?  Smoke obviously has no smell right?  I told her it was unacceptable and that I needed a refund.  She was reluctant to refund as I had booked through priceline.  I got a little crabby with her and told her that wasn't my problem.  She didn't have a room.  I had already paid for it.  Here was the paper work saying that the card was charged.. refund it.  She finally refunded it and we had to drive for 20 more minutes to another hotel which turned out to be nicer and Cheaper.  Still I will be crossing Henry's Guesthouse Inn off my list of places to stay. Very unhappy.  However South Fork Motel is an amazing hotel! We were tired and crabby and it was a really nice place to take a break!