Thursday, July 26, 2012

Road Trip, Part 8

We had a comparatively short drive from Martinsdale to the North entrance of Yellowstone.  It only took about 2.5 hours.  We arrived with plenty of time to explore.


One of the crazy things about Yellowstone is how the wildlife gets all up close to the buildings and roads.  The even crazier thing is how stupid people will approach the animals as if a 2 ton bison was a puppy.  Just a couple of weeks before our visit a visitor was gored into critical condition.  We saw lots of bison up close but always from within our car.  We also saw a black bear and elk.


I was so pleased with our lodging in the park.  We stayed in cabins behind the beautiful large Lake Lodge right at Lake Yellowstone.  The cabins were beautifully decorated, well equipped, surrounded by forrest, and not very expensive.  We could walk over to the Lodge for the cafeteria, gift shop, bar, cozy fireplaces, etc.  These have to be booked months before your visit, but I highly recommend them!


The lake was stunning.  It was hard to narrow down my photos so I included three.




On our first day we took an amazing hike down a very steep incline to stand right at the top of the Lower Falls.  It was lightly raining, slippery, achingly steep...but worth every minute to stand yards away from the powerful falls.


This is just Lucas being cute.


And this is Nate being pensive.  Our Montana friends passed along a cowboy hat to Nate and he wore it all the time the rest of the trip.  He is standing on the fishing bridge scanning for fish.  We did finally see one biting at the flies on the surface.


Because it's Yellowstone, we saw all kinds of bubbly, belching, smoking areas.  I swear it seems like an alien planet half the time.  The landscape is just so strange, so unexpected.






Coming Up: Old Faithful, my favorite Geyser Basin pics, a hike along the South rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

I have always wanted to go to Yellowstone and hope to go one day. Enjoyed the pics do far...looking forward to more!