A little more Yellowstone

My first post about Yellowstone was very hurried. I was trying to get it posted before we left Bozeman while I still had access to the internet and my photos. It was probably the most gorgeous scenery I've ever seen. The fact that it's untouched by human development is a wonderful thing. The differences in terrain from where we entered and exited and all the miles we covered inside was mind-boggling. I don't know if my teenage niece and nephews truly appreciate the awe of it, but I know that Jenny, Fred, Angie and I did. Angie takes people to Yellowstone quite often and she says she never tires of it. As a family they've been numerous times. And two weeks before we arrived, Angie had driven her van through with several Korean nuns inside! She's not even Catholic. She proved to be a great tour guide and it was wonderful to have someone drive us so we could look at everything we possibly could.

We left early last Wednesday morning from Bozeman and arrived in the park about noon after a meandering drive there with several stops for photos of the landscape and wildlife. Everywhere I looked I wanted to take a photograph. It's just that pretty. Here's a shot before we even got into the park. I love the colors that nature provides, even on a dreary day in late May, it's beautiful.

Shortly after entering the park, we saw this eagle's nest. Sadly, we didn't see any eagles in residence.
The plan was to stop beside this stream and eat at the picnic area. Since it was raining we assembled sandwiches on the go and everyone ate while driving. Anissa went right down to the water to see how cold it was. The report: pretty cold.

And Kyle was thrilled to find some poop on a stick. We didn't let him keep it for a souvenir. It would have upset the "natural" state of the park. He was happy with a photo.

One of our first major park stops was the Firehole Cascade. I posted a picture of it by itself in my previous Yellowstone post. A little background first. When we got the park entrance and it started pouring on us, we turned around after our photo at the gate and looped back to the grocery store to buy rain ponchos. Jenny found four clear ponchos and one yellow one. I bought an umbrella. This is a shot of Jenny, Angie and I at Firehold Cascade. Jenny is wearing her yellow poncho, which I dubbed "the chicken suit" and I made chicken noises every time she wore it. Annoying? Probably.

It's pretty funny to watch Jenny's family around steep areas. Fred won't get very close to the edge. Jenny gets up about as close as I will, I think because we need to see what it looks like over the edge. All three of their kids are climbers who aren't afraid to go off the beaten path. Here's Kyle (left) climbing up where there are no stairs. And Jeffrey (right) attempting to scale some rocks. He decided not to risk it after all.








This is probably my best shot of Old Faithful.

Here's our motley crew lined up on the bench to watch Old Faithful (from right): Angie, Anissa, Jenny, Jeffrey, Fred and Kyle.

Here we're on our way to the Old Faithful Inn to get some Grizzly Beary (aka huckleberry) ice cream. Anissa, Angie, Jenny, Fred and Jeffrey. Kyle was back walking with me. By the way, it was delish.

Jeffery is quite a dork, there's just really no disputing it. He got a souvenir hat when were at West Yellowstone before we even got into the park. And he left the tag on it and wore it over his other hat all day. I finally convinced him to remove the tag, but he still wore it over the other hat. In this picture he's providing a service by emptying the trash can out of Angie's van into one of the park's trash cans.

I found out that I love waterfalls while at Yellowstone. This one is a small one, though no less majestic, called the Kepler Cascades.

The largest amount of snow we saw was up at the Continental Divide (elevation 8262). This is a photo of Jeffrey, Kyle and Anissa on top of the snow. Kyle is sitting on the top of a trash can so that tells you how much snow was still up there. When Angie had been through the park two weeks earlier this road wasn't open because of the snow packed roads. Since snow in June is one of my dreams, I was pretty happy to see so much snow in late May, everyone else not so much.

This next shot was taken at Artist Point or what's also known as the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It's a beautiful waterfall in the distance which flows down into this canyon. The colors are amazing. We were there about an hour from sunset and it was just gorgeous. I don't think this photo does it justice.

Kyle showing us some leg so we'd give him a ride at one of our stops late in the day. Thirteen-year-olds!

Can you believe these last two shots were taken out of the van's windshield while were were driving down the road? I love them both.


And our day ended about 10:45 when we got back to Angie's house. By the time we left the park we didn't any daylight left at all. I'm already looking forward to going back again.

Next post: park wildlife.