More Yellowstone....AWESOME place!

Yellowstone and beyond

Buffalo traffic jam

Momma, baby and poppa

Old Faithful Inn built in 1 year all from materials from Yellowstone in 1903

Old Faithful

Check out the colors in that pool 

Another traffic jam

Campfire Lodge..YUM

The lake made from the earthquake.  WAS a campground and forest in 1959

Amazing surprise as we left the Visitor Center

Old diner her in West Yellowstone.  GORGEOUS!

These are all over town.  Pretty cool.

Beyond Yellowstone

Today we took the advice of a guy Fred met here in the RV park (from Cape Coral no less) and went to see Earthquake Lake just north and west of West Yellowstone.   What an interesting and unique trip that was.  All along Route 287 there are pull outs with pieces of the story about what happened when there was a 7.5 earthquake at Hebgen Lake on August 17, 1959.  High tourist season in this area.  One of the first stops was at "the Lake that Tilted"....an intriguing title don't you think?  Evidently the earth shook so hard that the lake actually shifted 19' and seiches (like a tsunami) washed away buildings and actually moved them across the river.  They are still there and it's called "Ghost Village".  They are in shambles, but amazing that before the quake they were on the other side of the river and a popular camping cabin resort.  I wont give you all the details, but if you are ever up this way you really need to take the time to see this.  There's a wonderful Visitor Center overlooking the huge landslide that blocked the river and caused massive flooding.   You can watch a film that explains all that happened, but on the way, stop and read every one of the sign posts.  It's so moving and detailed about the people who were there and lived through it.
On the way we pulled off at Campfire Lodge Resort, W. Yellowstone, Montana.  If you have any interest in fly fishing you will go nuts in this little shop!  AND, if you are one of those people who absolutely LOVE a large, incredibly delicious breakfast you MUST stop here.  Unfortunately we had eaten before we left home, but we settled for a homemade cinnamon bun big enough for two.  YUM.  The waitress was from So. Calif. so she told us about the dirt road to Ghost Cabins and how we could get back to Yellowstone by going all the way around in a circle.   So glad, because we would have missed the visitor center and some incredible scenery along the way.
As we pulled out of the Visitor center we saw a big horn sheep standing right in the middle of the road!  It stayed right there licking salt (we guessed) off the center of the road.  We got some AWESOME pictures of him.  It was SOOOOO exciting.
I'm having a little trouble uploading pictures so I can get them on the blog.   Will get them posted as soon as I can.  I've fallen in love with the buffalo, they are so YELLOWSTONE!  Have yet to see a bear or moose so for me the symbol of Yellowstone should be the Buffalo!

AMAZING place this Yellowstone!

Wow, what an incredible day!  We ended up being in THREE Buffalo traffic jams.  The first was a bit of a pain, since it took 1 1/2 hours to get through, but when we caught up with the "jam" it was a small herd of buffalo!  Momma's, Poppa's and babies too.  It was actually pretty cool to see them meandering down the road at their own pace.  Later in the day we had a small herd crossing the road and finally on the way home a smaller herd wandering down the road again.  All three times they came right next to our car.  It was amazing to be so close to those huge animals.  They seem so gentle, but there are warnings everywhere not to to get too close.  I guess it doesn't count if they choose to get close to you.
We checked out a bunch of geyser spots today.  It's amazing to see them up close and the colors of some of the "pools" are incredible.  They are so clear, you can see all the way to the bottom and some are pretty deep.  Old Faithful was by far the biggest eruption and we got to see it twice.  While we were wandering around we checked out the Old Faithful Inn that Juli and Jordan had told us about.  What an incredible building.  It was actually built in 1903 in one year!   There was a docent telling the history of the building and it was so fascinating.  Built entirely from trees in Yellowstone.  Even after her telling us the history it was hard to believe they put that huge building with 100 rooms together in that period of time in one year.  More incredible is how they found different shaped logs for braces and were able to find enough to match up sets.  You have to see it to believe it!

Touring Yellowstone with Juli

We had such a delightful day yesterday!  Our granddaughter  Juli had the day off and she was sweet enough to spend it with us showing us around Yellowstone.  We drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs.  TOTALLY awesome ride.  When we started out we were concerned everyone in Yellowstone had decided to take the same tour.  It took us an hour and a half to go about 14 miles because 2 buffalo (we learned as we finally got abreast of them) were walking down the road....not crossing....walking right down the only 2 lane road in to the park!  They have the right of way, but fortunately eventually a ranger showed up and convinced them to move over to the side and continue their journey.  When we finally got to them they were just lumbering along their merry way.  They're so HUGE!  Also, so ugly their adorable!  Can't remember if I've mentioned this, but it is amazing how many foreigners are visiting our National Parks.  If it weren't for them there'd be hardly anyone here at all.  Walking around the hot springs we hardly heard anyone speaking English. Mammoth Hot Springs is AMAZING.  There's so much to see here, we'll exhaust my camera and we're not even half way through the trip!
After a day of touring we came back to have dinner at our place.  We'd left a pot roast cooking while we were gone and Barefoot smelled DE-Licious!  Jordan got off early so he joined us for dinner and drinks.

He's so ugly he's actually kind of cute!

Pot Roast at Grizzly RV

Fred and I are off to tour more of Yellowstone today.  Headed to see Old Faithful and to check out Fishing Bridge.  We have reservations there for Fri. and Sat..

Going from Tetons to Yellowstone

Still lots of snow on the pass

But temps are in the 70's

Elk on the side of the road