Wild West Trip Sept. 2012 Virginia City and Nevada City Montana

Sat. 9-8-12 Hibernation Station West Yellowstone Montana

Yesterday we were up and driving north back through the Teton National Park. We stopped at the Rockefeller Parkway National Park to get our passbook stamped, It was a very foggy morning, but cleared by the time we arrived at the South entrance to Yellowstone. Our first stop was the visitor’s center, then straight to Old Faithful. Like clockwork she blasted right at her predicted time. After walking around the geysers and checking out the Old Faithful Lodge we continued northwest. We stopped at the various geyser basins, watched a bunch of bison cooling off in a stream, and then had a picnic lunch with a wonderful vista of blowing geysers and a steamy river at the Fountain of Paint Pots. We finished off the day with a drive and several stops through Firehole canyon. We drove out through the West Yellowstone exit to our home for the next five nights at the Hibernation Station. We have a great cabin complete with a corner fireplace which came in handy this morning. The days are up to mid 80’s, but the nights are in the 30’s, so it is quite cool first thing in the morning !!

This morning we headed to west for a day trip to visit Virginia City and Nevada City. These cities were part of the old gold rush days. We toured on a narrow guage train. Then headed to Nevada City which is a “living” museum, to you New England folk, think Old Sturbridge village, but booming gold mine town ! We then went to Virginia City where we took an old fire engine tour through town included a real boot hill cemetery and a very colorful history. It was anly about an 80 mile drive, but we passed by Herbegon lake which was about ten miles long, through the Galatin Nation Forest, and by Quake Lake which was formed in the 50’s when a huge earthquake dammed the river and formed a big lake. As with this whole a part of our beautiful country, every ten feet was another picture. We had dinner in town tonight, and had our photo token for our Christmas card this year – yes, may be too much time on our hands at night !!! It is the end of the season everywhere around here. Everything is getting ready to shut up for the season this week so we got here just in time. Tomorrow AM we are planning to be off at 6:00 AM to hopefully catch some early animal activity in the park !