Tuesday…and we’re on the road again.

We left Garrison, MT on wet roads after a rainy night, but clearing skies overhead (yeah, where else would the skies be, eh?)

That’s the first rain, other than a brief afternoon shower in Jackson, that we’ve had in the last three weeks.

We delayed our departure out of Garrison for a couple hours so that we could arrive at our first tourist stop after it opened at the crack of 10:00 am.  Geez, that’s noon on my eastern time zone clock.  Sure hate to get these folks out of bed too early.

But back to the tourist attraction…what else would we drive three weeks and 4,000 miles to go see?

The Deer Country Quilt Shop in Seeley Lake, MT.

My navigator needed some more souvenir cloth to haul around.

I get a kick out of all the shop clerks asking if Kathy wants to be on their mailing list.  Of course, we’re going to be back through here next month or as soon as they finish plowing the snow off the roads.  When they discover we’re travelers, the next comment is always “we sell on-line”. 

So that was today’s highlight.

Continuing north was much like driving in Michigan’s UP. 

Only difference is there was always a mountain ridge along either side of us…

…or on the horizon.

We arrived in West Glacier, MT the middle of the afternoon and will relax in the campsite for the rest of the day.  It’s a real nice campground with a little seclusion for a change.  Time will tell how buggy it gets as the evening progresses.

Tomorrow we’ll go into Glacier National Park and see what we can accomplish.  I’m not expecting too much as parts of the park are still closed due to snow.  We also learned the shuttle system doesn’t begin to run for a few days yet.  Talk about a short season.  

We’ll see what we can from our house on wheels.

It's Monday and we're on the move.

We turned north out of the Fishing Bridge area and once again encountered the Yellowstone bison herd in the usual meadow.  

Only this time, we became part of the herd.

It was a little closer of an encounter than I really wanted, but they just ambled past.

We exited the park at West Yellowstone and drove north along a valley.

We were beside either a lake or a river most of the trip today and saw dozens of fishermen and drift boats.

One nice thing, I got to drive on a straight, flat road for a while.

So we're holed up at a riverside campground near Garrison, MT.  One interesting sight we had after arrival was the grounds staff.

This girl is out weed whacking the grass around the trees.

Nothing unusual about that, right?

Just happens to be Kindercare, too.  That probably doesn't meet OSHA standards, but you can't teach work ethic too young, I guess.  

Tomorrow we'll head further north.  32° in Yellowstone wasn't cool enough for Kathy.  She wants REAL snow.

BTW...Latest word out of Glacier is the mountain road is still blocked by snow so we don't know what we might accomplish there.  Maybe help dig them out?  We'll see what kind of sno-mobile the Minnie Winnie is.

Sunday

…and getting out of Yellowstone can’t come soon enough for me.  We returned to the places that Kathy NEEDED to see.  Again it was vehicle chaos and we only got to a bit of what she had in mind. 

The first stop was more thermal areas which no longer interest me.  I’ve seen a hundred steaming holes in the dirt to satisfy my curiosity.  Kathy hiked a mile into the woods to see a waterfall.  I passed on that trip as soon as I saw the mosquitoes were swarming.

The only place I had any interest in was this waterfall.  Even those are beginning to look all the same.

We stopped along the shore of Yellowstone Lake for lunch.  This was the view while sitting in the doorway of the motor home.

What a great backdrop for a day of boating.

It makes me think of the days on Lake Michigan with the sand dunes as a backdrop.  I’ll do that again eventually.

Tomorrow it’s northbound for a few more days before turning east.

Saturday…and it only dropped to 34° last night. 

It’s the third day exploring Yellowstone.  Things went better today.  We had a much better plan to cope with the crowds.  BTW…it would be a good week to invade China.  All the Chinese are in Yellowstone and the rest of the western national parks.  They’re here by the hundreds and probably thousands.  There are busses everywhere with Chinese markings on the side.  The few I’ve interacted with are nice enough, but as a group, they’ve been a bit of a nuisance.

Anyway, we’ve decided we need to do the bulk of our touring before noon and just stop at roadside turnouts later in the day.  There’s not much of a crowd before lunchtime.

So we started out this morning and I took the obligatory photo of a couple of the park bison.

This meadow is a little north of our campground and always has bison in it.  In the afternoon, the whole herd is there.  In the morning, there’s likely to be an elk there.  Funny how people get out there 1200mm lenses to photo the bison and a half dozen times a day we go by one we could pet from the RV window.

So the agenda today was to head north to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  First stop was another geyser basin called the mud volcano.

Early in the day, when it’s cool, there’s a lot of steam so the viewing of the actual feature isn’t the best but that was our schedule.

These are mostly boiling, slurping, sloshing pools of mud like “stuff”.

Next, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the lower falls (access to the upper falls was blocked).  This is a real scenic spot.  These shots are from the south rim observation area.

And the view downstream.  The photos don’t capture the vastness and depth of this canyon.  It really is a sight to see.

Over on the north rim, another view of the canyon.

I remembered an osprey nest on top of one on the stone pillars in this area from our 2009 visit and wondered if it was still there?

And it’s still inhabited by an osprey.

Done with the canyon, we decided to head toward Mammoth Hot Springs and stop at a few points of interest along the way.

This is a vista view from a significant elevation in the park.  There’s still patches of snow here and there.  The mountains far off in the distance on the horizon are the Tetons at least 40 miles away.

We made a stop at Tower Falls.  Next to the store there is a bit of a waterfall coming down the slope.

But the main attraction is down a short trail.

I wasn’t up for the hike to the floor of the gorge.  The trip is the equivalent of a 600 foot extension ladder.  Maybe next time.

Then we stumbled upon the Undine Falls a few miles up the road.  These were an unexpected find.

I have to say that the marking in Yellowstone leaves a lot to be desired.  The main attractions are well marked.  All these other things may or may not have any signage.

Kathy gets a photo and I get a photo of Kathy.

We finally made it to Mammoth and found a place to park the motor home.  It’s not all that photogenic but is interesting in its own way.  The bubbling limestone and calcium deposits create a stair step type formation on the slope.  Color is mostly beige to snow white.

Looking over a pool toward Mammoth city.

Tomorrow is the last day in Yellowstone.  We’re going to get to some of the places early that were too crowded for us on day one.  I might even need to pony up to a gas pump.  Haven’t found one of those since we left Jackson on Thursday.

Friday!

First…the thermometer hanging in a tree down the road, read 32° this morning.  That’s a 70° departure from a week ago.  I even put on a pair of jeans this morning.

Second…after a day in Yellowstone, my observation is that it’s a place enjoyed by hundreds, but thousands would like that experience as well.  The park is without question over crowded.  It’s also not very RV friendly and where it is, parking isn’t controlled so autos take up the RV spaces.  It’s the federal government…need I say more?

It is a beautiful place.  We visited the Old Faithful geyser basin this morning.  Of course Kathy insisted on a hike so we walked a couple miles and saw every steaming, water filled hole in the area.

The Little Firehole River runs through the basin.  It seems to be the life that flows through an otherwise caustic landscape.

There are dozens of these bubbling, boiling pools throughout the area.

Some are quite colorful depending on the minerals they contain.

The main attraction is Old Faithful.

Every 90 minutes, give or take and it spews water and steam for about 3 minutes.  According to the ranger, it takes 400 years for that water to seep into the earth and find its way back to the surface.

We stopped at another basin and I let Kathy take the hike.  I’d seen plenty of boiling water today.  No need for more.  It all looks the same regardless of the geyser basin.

We drove around the southern loop today and also stopped at Gibbon Falls.  They were rebuilding this whole area in 2009 and it’s a nice area now, but again limited parking.

While we walked along the rim, we noticed a few fishermen in the stream below the falls.

There were a couple other stops that were not accessible to an RV and others that were full.  Like I said, access is an issue here for the throngs that come.  The ranger said there was a social scientist on staff to figure out what to do about that problem.  I can answer that…mass transit within the park just like the other national parks we’ve visited this month.  There…problem solved. 

So I can’t wait for tomorrow’s excitement.  This wasn’t the best experience for me today.  I was here in 2009 so it’s all a rerun.  I could do without the crowds.