Wild Wild West Trip Sept. 2012 Yellowstone Part #1

Little girl

Crow

Morning mist, frost on the ground

Lower falls

Upper falls

My Guy !

This guy had the traffic backed up 1/4 of a mile !

Cute little otters

the churning cauldron

Here's the coyote warning

And there's the coyote

Papa, mama, baby our for a stroll

Valley view

Okay - an idea for our Christmas card, but too serious

Still not there yet...

Sun. 9-9-12 West Yellowstone
OK – So Jon told me sunrise was at 5:30 AM, we were up before 6:00 AM, but it was not light till almost 6:45 AM – not happy ! Good news, we were about the first in the park and got some great AM shots of Bison, Elk, and various mist and steam on the water filtered with the rising sun. We then decided that we needed to go to the brink of both the lower and upper falls – should I mention, this was a 700 mile hike ?! We then toured around Yellowstone Lake, lots of scenic pull offs. We had wanted to have another picnic lunch and were frustrated that all of the stores we stopped at in the park were sold ut of sandwich, picnic fare, so we ended up eating a sleeve of Ritz crackers and cheese uggghhh….
We then took a loop drive north though Mammoth springs but we did not stop as we are saving that for tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, I do not know where I left my mind, but I thought we were leaving Tues. so we have been hurrying through everything. I realized tonight that we have another night here , so now we can actually catch our breath and make time for a 400 mile hike up a hill while dodging grizzly bears, wolves and onery moose – yippee !

Lamar Valley

Single lighting strike

Whole area of forest fire damage

Lamar Valley

Can you find the elk ?

Note me in the side mirror - I did allot of this....

AM sunrise

Unexpected hail storm

Road a bit slippery with the hail/ice

Mon.9-10-12 West Yellowstone
Up and on the road before sunrise, and we were treated to a spectacular sunrise ! We headed to Lamar Valley today which is the best spot for bears. Despite me yelling out for Yogi, and that we had free picnic baskets – no bear sightings ! We passed through a hail storm up on a narrow mountain road – then drove through some brief rain, but the skies were full of spectacular clouds, so again – lots of pictures. We got some great pics of buffalo that we saw by the herds, travelled out of the park to Cook City which was at the North east entrance, then passed back to Mammoth springs and drove out of the park again to Gardiner, then stopped at the springs, more animals, and 10,000 more pictures. We did a lot of walking, marveled at all of the abundant beauty, and now we are having some sundowners getting ready to head out for dinner.