Saturday, August 17 - Thursday, August 22, 2019 - Highlights of our visit to Yellowstone!

Saturday, August 17 - Thursday, August 22, 2019 - Highlights of our visit to Yellowstone!

Saturday, August 17, 2019
I've selected the best pictures to share, with comments throughout.

It was a unanimous decision to eat breakfast at "the best breakfast restaurant" in West Yellowstone this morning - Running Bear Pancake House.  IT was a Winner! 

Love the bear suspended over the pay station.

We thought this wall was pretty interesting with all of the primitive animals shown here.

After breakfast we stopped at a few shops downtown.

Dean

 AND

Frank

These two guys are pretty funny!  We enjoyed visiting all of the shops near us today.  It was a nice relaxing day before we head into Yellowstone NP tomorrow.  I bought a sweatshirt yesterday but no purchases for us today.  Dean is looking for a sweatshirt jacket - so we'll keep looking when we have a chance.

Ray, a native Louisianan made gumbo for all of us.  I made bread pudding and we had a wonderful meal.  What fun it was to share the evening with these wonderful people.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Dean and I rode with Frank and Joyce this morning, while Ray and Debbie followed us as we made our way through one section of Yellowstone today.  

We barely made it into Yellowstone NP when we saw this bison walking along the highway.  Our first wildlife sighting!

There were many random areas where steam was escaping. 

Look familiar?  They still use some of these for tours into Yellowstone Park. 

This was one of the springs that I enjoyed the most - due to the colors!

Frank and Joyce.

 Around noon, we stopped at Old Faithful Lodge.  We spent sometime inside the Visitor Center asking questions, listening to ranger discussions, etc.  This is an amazing place. 

Dean standing outside (left) of the Visitor Center at Old Faithful.

People starting to gather around Old Faithful.

The Old Faithful Lodge - I loved these "real" Lincoln Logs!

Frank, Joyce, Dean and I ate at the buffet in the Lodge.  Above is the menu.  I liked everything I had - but did not try everything.  My favorite item was the gourmet white macaroni & cheese!  My least favorite item on the menu was of all things the Brownies de Jour which were overbaked so much you almost had to break them away from the side of the pan.  However, once you took a bit they kind of melted in your mouth.  Lol!   It was all about the experience.

Our waiter was nice enough to take our picture before we headed to the buffet line!
(Frank, Dean, Joyce & Me)

Folks starting to line up to watch "Old Faithful".

I recorded Old Faithful erupting and it was amazing to see - but not quite as AWESOME as I expected!  Unfortunately, I have not been able to get videos to work within the blog.

What a great day we had.  It was mid-afternoon when we headed back to the RV Park.  Since we didn't eat the lunch we packed, we had that for dinner tonight.  It hit the spot.


Monday, August 19, 2019

Today we decided to visit the Grizzly Wolf Discovery Center - within just a short walk from our RV Park.  What a wonderful place this was.  Everyone enjoyed their time there.

After walking through the inside where a number of animals were on display in different sittings, we moved outside to view the live animals.  First up were the bears.  They have a very large area where a number of bears are on display throughout the day - typically 2 or 3 at a time.

Having fun in the water.  They played like a couple of kids.

I've had enough swimming for the day.  It's time to rest.

There were a number of these large ravens in the area - he found a pretty good morsel of food!

Beautiful white wolves.  They have the most beautiful haunting wail and since we were so close we would often hear them in the evening, but always every morning.  So beautiful!

Two bald eagles on display - here's some information on each of them below. 

Grizzly bear

The pair

And.....next door in the gift shop were three little bears sitting on the big bear's lap!

This was a great way to spend some time and was very enjoyable.  Well worth the fee to go and see these remarkable animals and learn so much about them.
We enjoyed our day visiting outside in the beautiful weather we experienced while here.  We decided for dinner we would go next door to the Chinese restaurant.   I believe we were the only customers.  No more than we had ordered our dinner, a bus pulled up and in minutes the restaurant was FULL!  The waiters were literally running to keep up from that point.  We got our food so quickly that we didn't have time to hardly eat our soup or egg roll before our entree was brought out.  The food was okay but I was disappointed - I just felt hurried and it was so loud we couldn't hear at all.  Just one of those things!

On our way back, I stopped to take a picture of this decoration at the entrance to our RV Park.  As Debbie, Joyce and I walked closer Debbie noticed the hummingbird moths on the flowers.

I had heard of these moths but had never seen them before.  It was fun to watch them flitting around from flower to flower.

We all set outside for awhile before the chill got to us.  It was another wonderful day.  


Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Dean and I took off by ourselves today.  We had plans to drive a large portion of the park, to the far east side and back.  Not sure when we might get back, no one else wanted to be gone that long, in order to check in on their animals.  

Before we left I could hear the wolves at the Grizzly Wolf Center howling.  I had to go outside and it was just wonderful listening to them.  We've heard them several times this week but this morning they really were wound up.  It's a beautiful, soulful sound.

We left the park shortly after 7:00, with the idea we would make a quick stop at McDonald's for a breakfast sandwich.  We walked in and right back out, as the line was so long we would have been held up for awhile.  I checked to see if there were any other fast food restaurants, and a Subway was just a short distance away.  Fortunately no one was waiting, so we soon had a sandwich and were headed into Yellowstone NP.

As we headed east from the West Entrance to Yellowstone NP, we followed the Madison River until we reached Gibbon Falls.

Our first stop was to view the Falls - a short walk to see this pretty waterfall.  I loved the black rock underneath it to showcase the beauty of the water flowing over it.

Gibbon Falls

We did not stop at Steamboat Geyser but we heard later there was an eruption there today.  It only erupts a few times a year and at eruptions provides the tallest geyser within the park, typically over 300 feet.  I googled it today and it has erupted three or four times since we've been there which is unusual.

Our first wildlife sighting today.  Those bison are beautiful animals.

 I'm just going to share some of the beautiful scenery we saw today.  If there is something special to note, I will do so under the pictures.

Random pictures in Yellowstone:

Fort Yellowstone.  We took this while we were visiting Mammoth Hot Springs.  Much of the springs overlook the downtown area.

A few deer wandered by us as we drove a short side road near the Springs.

Interesting landscape

What a contrast!

Another part of the Springs.

This is one of my favorite places we visited.

My handsome husband!

Very interesting crustiness building up from the springs.

One more shot before we left.

Visitor Center in Fort Yellowstone

Yellowstone River

We parked here to look at the river below - these rocks were overhanging the road, and many smaller rocks had broken off.  Glad none fell while we were driving by.

Tower Falls

The scenery was just gorgeous.  So many trees, hills, mountains, landscaping, rivers, waterways, geysers, springs, wildlife.  It was almost too much to take in.

Gorgeous area.

This was directly across the river canyon from the picture before this.  There were several people hiking a trail up the side of the hill.

 We stopped for lunch at a Lodge.  I enjoyed visiting with a lady from Boston while we waited to be seated at our table out on the veranda.  There were rocking chairs you could sit in while waiting for your reservation to be called.

As we walked back to the truck, we saw our first chipmunk.  

A chipmunk outside some of the cabins on site - near the restaurant and small store.

Buffalo really do not care if they are in your way or not.

I purposely added this so I wouldn't forget to share this story.  After we had returned to the RV Park, Debbie shared a post she had seen on Facebook about a bison and car accident that occurred while we were gone today.  From what we saw on Facebook bison started running down the road towards several cars.  One family was videoing this and they were relieved when one ran by their car without hitting it.  But the next one hit it head on - crumpling the front of the car and breaking the windshield.  Apparently other than being bounced around a bit, they seemed to be okay, and then you heard the dad say something like, "I sure wish we would have bought that rental insurance now."  Glad we weren't near that incident.  Apparently someone's car alarm went off and they think that is what triggered the bison to begin running like they did. 

We saw many, many fishermen (and women) along the way.

Stopping at the beginning of the Beartooth Highway.

 The countryside from here on was just beautiful, but we didn't make it as far as we had hoped.  We had driven quite a distance and had been gone a good part of the day, so we turned around before reaching Top of the World Store, which was our goal. There was still several more miles of the Beartooth Highway after that, but we knew we couldn't do it all on this trip.  We turned around and headed back.

 We stopped at this site, where four men had stopped for this scenic view, taking a break from their motorcycles on their way to Cody, WY.  We had a nice visit before we walked over a slight incline to take a look at this scenic point.


This made the trip for me!!!!

My favorite wildlife sighting of the trip!!!!

As we were driving along, I told Dean it looks like that bison has something jumping on it or something moving around it.  Fortunately we were able to stop - along with many other cars.  I zoomed my camera in and was so surprised to see a Mama Grizzly with two cubs devouring what was left of this bison carcass.  I was so excited to see these bears in the wild.  


On the next portion of our drive through the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstones we saw so many beautiful vistas.  We wound up and around for miles and then we began the descent.  It was just amazing to see.  It was just so beautiful and amazing.  At times we felt right at the edge of the road where it was straight down.  Unfortunately, the driver doesn't get to enjoy the sites nearly as much as the passenger does, and my pictures do not begin to do it justice.

 On the last leg of our trip today, we decided to take a short road called Riverside Drive, not too far from the park entrance leading to West Yellowstone, MT.  What a great find - an elk walking right alongside the road just before we turned back up on the highway.  

We enjoyed this beautiful day of exploring this wonderful park.

When we returned  all six of us walked two blocks to a small bus where a Mexican restaurant was located.  Dean and I both ordered tacos and they were amazing.  Dean didn't quite get as excited about them as I did.  They included rice and beans along with a little salad.

Before we left I thought it felt cool so I grabbed my light jacket but before we had walked too far, I decided it wasn't as warm as I thought and I tossed it in the back of Frank and Joyce's car (since it was so close).  

After we ate, we started walking down the street and the wind picked up and a cool front blew through - where is that jacket when you need it?  We ducked into a large store and walked around looking at things before we finally braved the block we still needed to walk to return to the park.  All of a sudden it wasn't so cool anymore.  Crazy weather!

We decided to walk on over to the IMAX theater to try some of that 50 cent ice cream.  I just had a small vanilla cone and we enjoyed looking around in their large gift shop before returning to the RV's.  It was too cold to sit outside by then, so everyone retired for the evening.  If only we could have had our pellet stove we would have enjoyed sitting out for another hour or two.


Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Today was a nice slow day.  I did some laundry and a little cleaning in Bentley.  Later Joyce and I ran to the store.  We are having hamburgers on the grill this evening.  I am making baked beans, Joyce is making potato salad and Debbie is making a cobbler.  Frank was the grillmaster and did an excellent job.  We had a great meal.  An hour or so later we were dishing up warm apple cobbler.  Too bad we didn't have any ice cream for it.  Ice cream just wouldn't leave our minds, and it wasn't too long we all walked back to the IMAX theater where several of us had ice cream.  This time I tried a small cone of huckleberry.  It was quite good.  Dean was still looking for a sweatshirt jacket and we were happy that he found one here.  


Thursday, August 22, 2019

Our last day/evening at West Yellowstone, MT.   There was still one section of Yellowstone we wanted to see, so we took out this morning to take in this last section.

We saw this group of elk along the water not too far into the park.

Lower Falls

Upper Falls

Upper Falls - and down she goes!

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstones.  So beautiful!

A few swans we saw as we drove by.

I couldn't help but take a picture of this.  This girl was not that far away from this buffalo.  I hope he didn't feel threatened in anyway.  After some of the things we've seen buffalo do on Facebook and TV, I would not want to be this close to one.

These mud pots are really neat to watch, as the water boils, and the mud looks like someone blowing bubbles.

We moved on over to Yellowstone Lake.  We saw a few boats on the lake and we stopped at a Visitor's Center where we had a dip of ice cream.

The gift shop was gorgeous both inside and out.  I loved this light and the ceiling.

Driftwood? table.

Grand Lake Lodge in Grand Lake, Colorado

We stopped at another mud pot pit on the way back.  Very interesting!

More mud pots on return home.

The colors are so pretty.  It was overcast so the colors do not do it justice.

More bison.

I cannot remember the name of this falls but it was beautiful and very powerful.

 More elk as we returned to the campground.

As we pulled into town I took a few quick pictures.

• Near the main entrance to town in the center of the street.

This is near the entrance to our park.

Located right behind us in the park.

Our campsite.

I loved this light decoration - maybe an idea for over a kitchen work area?

This week has been such a great time with our friends Frank and Joyce, and meeting Ray and Debbie who we feel are also good friends now.  We have met so many wonderful people in our travels.  We will head west and then south tomorrow.  Stay tuned to see where we end up.