Yellowstone

The roads through Yellowstone are laid out like a figure 8, so Saturday morning, in order to beat the crowds and heat, we were up early to travel the north loop.  It was much more mountainous and scenic, but still a far cry from the grandeur of our previous stops.  We stopped at some Hot Springs, saw a bear, passed the infamous buffalo walking down the middle of the road; all in all it was a long drive with not much excitement. We did see our second wolf, this one was the "true gray" wolf, again the distance prevented us to get good pictures.

We were back to camp by mid afternoon, relaxed for a bit, made supper and then went into West Yellowstone to do some shopping.  The town is set up like a tourist trap, comparable to the boardwalks on the beach with many T Shirt shops.  The difference was the western theme; furs, knives, cowboy hats were part of our window shopping.

 Sunday morning was a lazy morning as we packed up camp, headed through the southern end of Yellowstone, out the East exit to camp in the Shoeshone Valley of Wyoming just outside of Cody. Since we were going right by Old Faithful we opted to view her eruption again; a more impressive display I might add. Our travel sights included large herds of buffalo and our first grizzly bear.

We have our noses pointed east now.  The entire trip was centered around getting to Yellowstone and then it's working our way home.  Whether it was the heat or road weary travelers, our entire family would concur that Yellowstone did not live up to it's hype.  In talking to other travelers, I heard the same thing repeated over and over.  The wildlife was nice, the hot springs and geysers amazing, but the landscape and amount of miles traveled made for a long couple days.

What I did not know or expect was that the draw to Yellowstone is the fact that it is an "active volcano", if Dwight is correct, he calls it a shield volcano.  The many steaming hot springs, colorful cascades created by hot mineral water flowing from the ground, bubbling mud pots, burping caves that sound like a dragons lair, and the constant smell of sulfur is an impressive feat of nature unlike any other place.  Our expectations of beautiful scenery was not met, the other facts of the park were worth the stop.  Now we know...

A friendly lumbering black bear gave us a nice pass by...

The sign said "boiling hot water, do not touch"....

Mammoth Hot Springs, impressive feat of nature.

We came, we saw....