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Hello all we are having an excellent time. I can’t believe it’s the 7th day in vacation! We have not seen a bear. We have seen an elk, pronghorn deer, bison, baby bison, marmot, and many more. We have pictures and videos to show when we get back.
Love to all,
Grace
June 3, 2010 - It costs a family of four more to take a shower at our campground resort than our monthly water bill at home. But, then again…it sure did feel good to get clean and we’ll do it again. That’s how we started our day because today was Yellowstone. Yellowstone is about an hour and half away from our campground. The drive was spectacular and once in the park the views got even better. Of course, we stopped at the “Entering Yellowstone National Park” sign for the traditional photo.
We were able to take in a few of the “pull-offs” that made my list of “to do’s”. We saw Lewis Falls and Lewis Lake of the famed Lewis and Clark. The falls were spectacular and oh so far down. It almost takes your breath away. Once again, the waters were raging rapidly. It was amazing, at Lewis Lake, part of the lake was still frozen and had chunks of ice floating in it. The temperatures vary so much it is funny. It is not uncommon to have a range of 10-20 degrees within 15-30 minutes.
From the South Gate to the park to Old Faithful is about an hour’s drive so we saw a lot of the park before we even got to the geysers. The traffic seemed to pick up as we arrived at Old Faithful. We parked and decided to take in the Visitor’s Center before really deciding how we wanted our visit to go. As luck would have it, we walked up to Old Faithful about 2 minutes before it erupted. Priority # 1…checked off. After our first Old Faithful eruption, we finally made it to the Visitor’s Center for the traditional 14 minute video about the Geyser Region. We decided that we wanted to take in the next eruption of Daisy Geyser. It was an easy 1 mile walk and…as luck would have it we walked up just as Ms. Daisy was erupting. Priority # 2…checked off. Now, back to the Inn.
We took in both the Old Faithful Lodge and Inn. At the Inn, we found the 2nd story balcony in which all information recommends you take in a view of Old Faithful. No one balked at the idea of taking a load off. Twenty minutes later…bang…Old Faithful erupted. Priority # 3…checked off. Boy, was timing on our side today. Thank you.
The rest of the day doesn’t matter. Time had been on our side. The travel book that we had bought on the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone recommended that for those wanting an out of the way view of the Grand Prismatic needed to go to the Fairy Falls Trailhead, walk a mile until you come to a faint trail up the fire scarred hillside. We took the advice and once there, took some amazing photos that those around the Grand Prismatic would not see. We didn’t even stop at the traditional board walk area. After what we saw, it wouldn’t have done it justice!
One of the other attractions that appealed to us in that area was the Fire Hole swimming area. According to our travel book, the swimming area is one of the only water ways open to the public to take a dip in. Even if it was just our feet, this was on our list. We made the drive and took in a very scenic drive along the Fire Hole Falls. Again, the power of the water was amazing, but once we arrived at the swimming area…CLOSED! Big fat bummer!
By now, we were hungry and waiting until getting back to the campground wasn’t going to happen. Thanks to the directions of our trusty Garmin, we were able to find that there were some fine eating locations about 25 miles away. It didn’t tell us it was in Montana! Well, Montana, here we came. Just outside the West Gate of Yellowstone sits a small town in Montana. Add another state to our list of travels. While there, we found a quaint little place called the Outpost Restaurant. Apparently, after reading a comment by Rebecca, we realized that my niece’s husband may have family in that area. Well, Elizabeth and Mike, we didn’t run into any Romans, but the hospitality and the food was just fine.
For the most part, the weather cooperated with us today. We had rain, drizzle, sun and clouds at different parts of the day. The drive back to the campground was nice. We chased the sunset over the mountains. The wild life was active and out and we saw several herds of buffalo and elk. Did you know that if a HUGE buffalo is standing in the middle of the roadway, you can’t do anything about it?
We did take several pictures of herds of buffalo today. There are so many calves right now and they are so darn cute! We got some great pictures of them. Today buffalo and elk widely outnumbered all other wildlife. We still haven’t seen any bear and I am not too sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Good, I guess. I did think I caught a glimpse of a Jack-A-Lope, but it was quick and I couldn’t get a second look. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.
We wore Grace out pretty good and as I write this she is sound asleep. Isaac is reading and Karen is planning our day for tomorrow. It may be a return trip to Yellowstone, a trip to Jackson Hole or a day in the Tetons. We’ll see.
Today, we commented about how weird it was that we could pass a huge lake in June that still had ice in it and signs posted talking about exposure in the extreme cold water could be fatal and then see geysers 20 miles away that shoot 200 degree water in the air in hundreds of gallons per eruption. What’s going on in this region? Our travel book, Lonely Planet, had a great quote that summarized this question and our day. It is a perfect quote for the day and the name sake of this blog. It says, “Yellowstone is a spectacular landscape shaped by volcano and glaciers - fire and ice - on a mind-boggling scale.” - J.
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Mom
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Happy, happy, happy
Oh, how I am loving these blogs!! Any creative writing course you took is paying off big time. Maybe some of it is in all the reports you've written for work. But you're making your whole trip come alive for us. Thanks, Grace for the intro note. I hope your time there doesn't speed by just too quickly. We'll be gone Mon. thru Fri. next week, so this will probably be my only comment. Continue to travel safely. Love, Mom