2nd Trip to Yellowstone (Part 1)

8 Jul 2010--I don't have any idea what happened to my blog, but for some reason my pictures loaded as a separate blog than did my videos. I don't have the patience to start over, so what I am going to do is put the pictures and most of the commentary here, and then post a separate blog with the videos.

We went into Yellowstone again yesterday for a marathon trip thru the north east side of the park, about 220 miles and 11 hours in the car in all. We took Fluffy with us of course. It was a cool day for the 2nd day in a row, so it was a good day to take her because when we had to get out of the car to see something, it was cool enough to leave her in there with the car shut off.

I took a picture of this map because it pretty much spells out our ride. We drove west from Cody to get into the park, drove north from the entrance, exited the park thru the north east gate into Cooke City in Montana, then came all the way down Hwy 296 to Cody again. Hwy 296 is called the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway, and although it was pretty, I wouldn't be in a hurry to do it again...just too much time in the car!

I didn't know that there had been a major earthquake in this area back in 1978. As the writing here shows, the earthquake changed this area dramatically, and they explain the difference between mudpots and fumaroles. I have a video on the other page of the mudpot.

These are pics of an area called Calcite Springs and then the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Looking at the pics they almost look fake they are so beautiful. Again, click on the stitch photos to see the best view of them.

The Grand Canyon part includes Lower Falls, a 308 ft waterfall.

These are some photos I posted just because i thought they were so pretty. The 2nd one here on the right is the Yellowstone River.

The vrown spots you see are buffalo...you wouldn't believe how many buffalo are here. And lower pic on the right is 2 buffalo in the water. Never saw them get that deep in the water before.

Here are some buffalo that have decided to hold all of us up on the road. When that guy on the motorcycle finally passed him, he gave the buffalo a wide berth. And the last pic is of the buffalo passing by my window.

Cathy is scouting for us. In all our trips to Yellowstone, at least 7 by my count, we have never seen a bear.

But then we turned a corner, saw about a hundred cars stopped, got out quickly, and not only saw a Grizzly, but a Grizzly and her 2 cubs!!! In the 1st picture the 2 cubs are on/around the rock. In the 2nd pic the baby is waiting for the other baby to catch up. This was the highlight of the day!!!

We weren't long on the Chief Joseph Hwy before these cows stopped us. A lot of the land here is "open range", so the livestock have free reign as to where they want to go.

We were up about 10,000 ft when we saw signs telling us about the Nez Perce War, fought in 1877 and in large part fought in these hills. The Nez Perce Indians were trying to escape from the US Army, still PO'd about the defeat at Little Big Horn a year earlier, who were chasing them. The Nez Perce thought that if they could get thru these mountain ranges before the winter set in, they would be in the clear. Unfortunately for the Army, all the newspapers of the day wrote about the chase, and when the Indians eluded them, they were the laughingstock of the country. These ranges are beautiful, but I can't imagine going thru them on horseback or on foot.

Finally, only Mia and Marie responded to my call for a caravan, so I took another picture of a rental RV, this one bigger than the last, just in case anyone else was still contemplating a caravan but was concerned that the last RV I showed you was too small!!

Now turn to Part 2 for the videos!!!