Old Faithful

Monday was Old Faithful Day.
That's us: Old and Faithful!

We entered the park through the West Entrance as usual. As she handed over her Park Pass and ID at the entry booth, Joyce told the ranger that we didn't need a map. The Ranger said "Oh, yes, you've been here before: I recognize your car." We can't do anything naughty because our Fusion Orange VUE identifies us right away!

It wasn't long after we entered the park that we encountered our first wildlife jam. It turned out to be four elk in the river. That looked picturesque to us so we were out of the car in a flash. It turned out that the oldest female was trying to run the young buck out of the group. There was a lot of leaping and splashing.

Then came the running and chasing. She ran him up onto the bank of the river and, when he came back into the water, she ran him upstream until he quietly walked away. What a great show!

The Visitor Center Building is closed and a new, temporary building is being used in its place but the windows still make for a great reflection photo. You can see the lighting fixtures on the ceiling on the inside and the reflection of the clouds and trees on the outside.

After visiting the Visitor Center, we joined the masses to watch Old Faithful erupt from the benches provided. It was difficult to photograph as the wind changed and blew the steam right at us (even as we got up and walked this way and that, the steam followed us). This picture is from the second eruption we watched from up on the Geyser Hill behind Old Faithful.

The colors in the water are formed by thermophiles (heat-loving organisms) such as algae and bacteria. The different temperatures support different organisms which, in turn, are different colors.

The smaller eruptions are often very attractive and easier to see because visitors can stand so much closer to them.

You may be asking yourself, "It is all well and good to look at Joyce and Ron's photos, but how can I take pictures like these at home?" Well, we suggest a close-up of a nice hot, bubbly, cheese pizza with a pool of grease to simulate this photo!

The skies were beautiful Monday, whether viewed directly or reflected in the calm water of a hot thermal pool.

Grotto Geyser is a favorite with us not only because of its beauty but also because of the shady benches provided for viewing it in comfort. Grotto erupts about every seven hours and the eruptions last for 1-1/2 to 10 hours.

Morning Glory Pool was named in the 1880s and is still a very popular spot with visitors. Yellow and orange creatures thrive in cooler waters and the green and blue indicate hotter water. In fact, if the water is too hot for anything to survive, it is pure, clear blue.

This is Castle Geyser. Its cone is thousands of years old and the platform it rests on is even older. Together they form one of the oldest sinter formations in the world. The current eruption pattern is about once every 13 hours, lasting for about 20 minutes. Note the rainbow just above the cloud level in the photo above.

As we walked back toward the main area, the rainbow appeared to move with us until we ran out of steam -- actually we had already run out of steam but when the geyser's steam couldn't travel any further the rainbow disappeared.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Today's adventure was at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. The above shows you a sweeping view of the canyon including the Lower Falls. We stopped at a number of overlooks along the north rim before lunch.

This view from the Lookout viewpoint shows a wonderful rainbow in the spray of the falls. We are standing up on the rim looking down into the canyon. This stop offers not only the viewpoint this photo was taken from but also a trail to a viewpoint far, far, far below. Joyce took the trail down which, of course, meant she also had to take it up. The disappointment was that the view didn't seem that different (and the rainbow was gone). Ron waited for her at the top with a warm welcome back.

While we were driving up to Canyon Village for lunch, we ran into a wildlife jam and it was a doozie! There were two elk with big racks of antlers and a bison just for good measure -- all very close to the road. The bison was laying there until he flopped on his side in the dirt with his legs sticking straight out. He wiggled a little and then straightened back up with the dust still swirling around him.

The elk grazed and then posed, showing off their magnificent antlers with the velvet still on them. At Canyon Village there is a variety of choices for lunch including a dining room, a deli, a cafeteria, and some snack spots. We (meaning Ron) chose the Dining Room and it was a great choice: a little more expensive but quiet and restful. Surprisingly, the only items on the menu were salads, burgers, and deserts. But they were great burgers. Joyce built her own by ordering the meat, the bun, the toppings and garnishes all separately! Ron made a choice from the named burgers.

This final shot is from Artist's Point which offers the classic view of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. There is a tremendous amount of water gushing over all the falls we have seen. The rock in the foreground is dear to Joyce's heart. She remembers sitting on this rock with her Mom in the '50's before posing there for a picture with the family on one of the family camping trips.

Wednesday Is Just Mammoth!

Tuesday we visited the Mammoth Hot Springs area in Yellowstone. You gotta love any place that has mammoth restrooms. We spent the afternoon in the area leaving the RV about 1 pm and returning a little after 9 pm. We wanted the later afternoon sun. We ate at the Terrace Grill (a fancy name for a fast food joint) and then went to the upper loop drive.

This is our favorite formation on the upper loop. It is so cool the way the hot water runs over the whole thing. The minerals in the water are left behind and the cone just gets bigger and bigger. Ron likes it because it's orange.

Everywhere we go there are so many pretty wild flowers. Generally the blooms are small and scattered through the landscape. The colors are mainly yellow, purple, and white. We did see one pink one today.

This is a view of the main terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs. Both Ron and Joyce noted that there is a lot less water year by year and with the reduced water flow, the colorful bacteria are disappearing. Mammoth just isn't as pretty as it used to be (but clever photography can help it!).

We had a number of wildlife sighting as we drove through the park today. The sun was getting quite low when we spotted this deer grazing with two others.

This bison was quite a shock. Joyce had spotted the one in the rear and pulled over to watch it. When the car stopped, she looked out the window directly at this big fella! There were also a lot of smaller wildlife sighting, primarily mosquitoes. Good grief for mosquitoes! Neither Joyce nor Ron remember experiencing them at Yellowstone in prior years -- but that's probably because we haven't been here this time of year. We are each using different insect repellents and we'll see which one works better. And thank goodness for Sparky, Joyce's electric fly swatter!

We stopped for this lovely waterfall on the way home. The same extra water that's growing the mosquitoes is producing wonderful run-off for the waterfalls. You can count on seeing more of them.

Monday is a Driving Day

Monday was our day to drive from Teton Village to West Yellowstone, a distance of about 125 miles. It took us six hours. We don't like to rush. We backed out of spot 18 at the KOA (without coming close to hitting a tree, by the way) about 10 a.m. We drove up through Teton to stop for lunch at Flagg Ranch which is located between Teton and Yellowstone parks. Following a very pleasant meal we drove on.

As we traveled through Yellowstone, the weather was rather overcast. Ron mentioned that this might be good weather to try to photograph Lewis Falls where the water is often too bright to picture properly. So . . . Joyce pulled about 50 feet of rig to the side of the road (see above). It turns out that overcast weather doesn't help Lewis Falls -- it's just not that attractive. But that didn't stop us from taking over 80 pictures between us! Most of those have gone on to digital heaven. This photo does show water falling and it was taken at Lewis Falls but it is actually a close-up of water pouring over a log and splashing into the river. The water dropped at least three inches!

We arrived in good shape at Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone and backed into spot 125 where we will be living for the next 22 nights! During the Stanley Cup game there was a major storm complete with lightning, thunder, rain, and hail.

Sunday, while we were still in the Jackson area, we visited with Joyce's friends Geri and Fred Wacaser. They were the wagon masters for the first two RV caravans that Joyce took to Yellowknife and to Alaska. Fred is working for the National Elk Refuge for the summer. It was great to visit with them.

Grand Teton National Park

We promised you some photos from Teton and today's the day! Some of these photos are Joyce's and some are Ron's (no fair guessing that all the best ones are Ron's!). The one above is from Oxbow overlook. The Snake River doubled back on itself and eventually the bend was cut off by a shorter route for the river leaving this calm water.

We've seen plenty of wildlife -- most of it on the same day. The first wildlife jam (traffic jam because people are looking at animals) we came to was for this moose mama and her little calf.

Next we came to an even bigger jam for this grizzly sow and her three cubs. Eventually the rangers heard about the jam and came pouring in to observe the bear (what can you do about something at the top of the food chain who isn't afraid of people?) but mostly to control traffic and try to keep us visitors from becoming mauling victims. They told us that this mama is 10 years old and the cubs were born this winter. Her last cub was born two years ago but another bear killed it. This time she and the cubs are doing well. She wears a radio collar as part of the tracking program for endangered species.

Mom was grubbing around for worms and insects -- a significant portion of their diet. The cubs mostly played around. In the last couple of days she had killed a couple of elk calves to feed her three babies.

We stayed for a long time and eventually moved on. The wildlife jam was good training for what we hope to encounter in Yellowstone in the next couple of weeks.

We got up one morning at 4:25 a.m. (yes, that is in the morning) so that we could be at Schwabacher Landing at sunrise. Not really being that good at planning, we went when sunrise is absolutely the earliest it is all year: 5:41 a.m. -- next time, maybe we'll choose December so we can sleep in! The sunrise wasn't as colorful over the mountains as we had hoped but the scene was lovely and we enjoyed it nevertheless.

There was more color to the north, but not much in the way of peaks there!

On another visit to Schwabacher during the middle of the day we encountered hundreds of butterflies. Most were blue-violet in color but we also found these colorful beauties.


The two above and below are also from Schwabacher. The above is our tribute to the unknown photographer.


One of our very favorite places for photography is Mormon Row, named for the early Mormon settlers who build the buildings that are still (barely) standing. We visited here a couple of times, too. The first day there were a number of painters and the second time, early in the morning, there were a number of other photographers.

That would pretty much be the view when the settlers were there: Little house, big prairie, big mountains.

This barn is a favorite with the painters.

The machinery appeared to have been sitting here just too long.

There are three barns still standing in all. Below is a close-up of the barn above.


Joyce was under constant observation while taking photos. Yes, yes, there are those that would argue that she needs that supervision all the time! Eventually the job became too big for any one ground squirel and two had to watch her at the same time, one with the right eye and one with the left.


I'm sure Kodak mourns the introduction of digital cameras: We would have used up a lot of their film on these barns if we had it.

There are a number of private ranches still inside the boundaries of the park including this scenic one.

We'll leave you with another image of the Oxbow. We have so many wonderful photos and we just selected a few for you. Hope you enjoyed them.

News from Teton National Park

We arrived at Teton Village KOA on Monday. I can't bear to tell you about the ensuing events but suffice it to say that there appears to be no permanent damage despite the "professional" parker that led me right into the tree! I can still hear Ron's cry of "STOP!!!!" ringing in my ears. No pictures of this yet -- maybe I can face it for the next post. I can show you a picture of the nice, wide-open, treeless place we spent Sunday night, in Rawlins, Wyoming: A Western Hills Campground.

On Tuesday we took a preliminary drive through the park and a stroll around Jackson and encountered a couple of shops that may be of interest to some of our friends. The first was on Pearl Street and is a knitting shop called Knit on Pearl, which I thought was clever. Looks cozy, too.

The second spot that attracted my camera is a restaurant that might appeal to our kinkier friends. Thai Me Up is a Thai restaurant with attractive outdoor seating. As you might expect there are lots of restaurants in Jackson, all expensive.


We celebrated our Fifth Monthiversary with a wonderful dinner at the Mangy Moose Restaurant in Teton Village. What an attractive couple, don't you think?

The weather has not been conducive to photography with massive rain storms (should be improving soon) so we have gone to a couple of movies. One was Kinky Boots, an English movie from the Sundance Film Festival that was also shown here at the Jackson Film Festival last week. Two thumbs up for this one. The other was The DaVinci Code. Too much blood for Joyce (the sissy one) and Ron thought the book was better but he still liked it. One thumb up and one down.

Our RV Park in Golden, Colorado

We stayed at the Dakota Ridge RV Park in Golden, Colorado, for three weeks. This morning we packed up and left for Teton Village with an overnight stop in Rawlins, Wyoming. The weather was lovely for traveling.