I am sorry if you are getting tired of our vacation slide show but this is this is the last installment. It was a pretty great vacation.
We managed to find an occasional ice cream shop and LOTS of coffee shops for me. I think this one was along the Beartooth Pass area in Yellowstone. We stopped at many cute little towns and I was thankful for the coffee shops to feed my latte addiction and Bud managed to have an occasional ice cream. I did indulge a couple of times too.
We saw wildlife along the road. Thanks to telephoto lenses it looks like we are close up but aren't really that close.
This petrified tree was a site off the main road. We were a sucker for signs to tell us of different sites we needed to check out.
The Bison roamed freely.
The elk have the large park to wander.
We spent two nights in the northwest area just outside the park because we were unable to get a room inside the park at one of the lodges. We didn't anticipate the number of people that thought this would be a good time to visit too. These are some hot springs that we could walk out among.
NO, that isn't snow behind Bud. It is the minerals left behind by the hotsprings.
It was a big area to walk around and check out the springs.
We had heard of a waterfalls that was rather spectacular but couldn't remember the name so one day we did a little walk out to this falls and realized it probably wasn't the one we were looking for but we did get a little exercise and get off the beaten path a bit.
THEN, we did find the real falls and it was very spectacular.
There is something about rushing water and the mountains that is very beautiful.
We did find someone to take our picture.
We saw this animal just off the road. Bud thought it was a coyote
This is the same falls but lower down.
The mountains and the lakes look beautiful This is Yellowstone Lake, on the north end of the lake
The town of Gardner has some VERY tame elk that just wander the streets. There are signs all over to remind people to watch out for them. One evening when we were coming back from dinner and Bud was driving into the sun, he almost ran into one just standing in the road.
We walked around areas where there were hot springs and geysers all around the path.
The Painted Pots area has a lot of beautiful hot spring pots of water. The color was wonderful
Old Faithful and the area around it is full of geysers. This one above is called Castle Geyser. It wasn't going off at the time we were there and doesn't go off as frequently as Old Faithful but it was interesting to see the formation made by the minerals. This takes a LONG time for those minerals to build up around the geyser.
And of course the most famous of geysers. We did have to wait a while for it to display its beauty but it gave us time to look at some of the other geysers and have lunch.
The performance was spectacular. I didn't include the many pictures I took, just the best one.
After our last of 3 days in Yellowstone we headed north to Big Sky where our friends Kathy and Mike were spending a week on a river fly fishing and enjoying a family reunion. They invited us to spend the night with their family at this beautiful cabin along the river. Most of Mike's brothers and sisters were there for the week, spending time much like out houseboat trip except fly fishing for entertainment. We had a wonderful dinner with them.
This is the view from the cabin. A nice place to relax and enjoy their family.
We had a little car trouble and needed to get on the way home so we were up early and headed into Bozman Montana to have the car checked out before heading as far east as possible. I can't remember exactly where we spent that night but we realized that it is a LONG way across Montana, South Dakota and into Iowa. The cruise control wasn't working on the car so that made the driving a bit more tiring. I wonder how those pioneers managed to get all that way out west without highways and cruise control on their oxen.
We wanted to stop in and see Uncle Eldon in Humboldt, Iowa. He is in a nursing home there and since we were in the 'area' we wanted to visit him. He is doing as well as you can expect for a 93 year old man. WOW, I sure have longevity in my family. I'm not sure that is always a good thing but just something I will have to accept or maybe the family will just have to accept it of me. All those years of being nice to my nieces and nephews will have to count for something, I am hoping.
WELL, thhhat'sssss all folks. You have finally made it through the trip pictures. I hope enjoyed some of it and are able to visit some of our national parks yourself some day.
Thanks for viewing my long blog entries.
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