Yellowstone Part 1



A beautiful thunderstorm that never actually made it us.



 

 



One of the thermal water pools!





Bryson checking the Boiling Springs temperature





Mom checking the water temp at Boiling River.




Kaylee's buffalo chip and hair.



We drove from Devils Tower to Billings, Montana, so Norman and Karen could ride the scooter for the local new station in the morning.  Karen and Norm were up at the crack of dawn shooting the segment of the news and then home by 8:30am.  It's amazing how different the lifestyles are at the different towns we visit.  The lack of traffic at these little towns is nice, but the feeling of a town struggling to survive in this economy is also present.  I sometimes wonder which is the better way of life.  The huge city like Atlanta, with all the traffic and stress, but plenty of business or the small city such as Billings with very little traffic, but the stress of having a job from day to day?  Right now I'm not sure of the answer to that question.  Back to our stay at Billings....  When Karen came home we decided to go into town to pick up some breakfast at a local diner called Stella's. Walking out to the truck I was pleasantly surprised to find the Dodge truck washed and vacuumed by my beautiful wife!  Isn't that the bees knees?  Karen and Norman got up, went to their show and then cleaned the truck!  What a great wife I have!  At Stella's the food was great, but hospitality....... not so much.  I think they were a little overwhelmed this morning though!  From there we made a quick run through the city to see anything of interest and then headed to Yellowstone! 

We arrived at our campground in a town called Gardiner, a 1/4 mile from the north Yellowstone entrance, around 6:30pm.  We setup camp and scouted out the town for some groceries and any neat looking stores to visit.  The night came to a close with a beautiful thunderstorm trying it's best to creep over the mountain range to no avail.

The next Morning, it was time to hit the the park!  We started off heading towards Mammoth Hot Springs, one of the many active geothermal attractions, in the park. On the way to Mammoth we came across a place called Boiling River.  This a river of super heated water that leaks from a spring and mixes with the Yellowstone river to make a sauna like 80 degree river water.  We went down to the river area and found it to be a local favorite and crowded with people!  While heading back to the car from Boiling river, Kaylee and I spotted some traces of buffalo activity via hair stuck in the sage brush and buffalo chips on the ground.  Kaylee quickly picked up both, but I advised her that Mom probably would not want us to keep the chip (AKA poop).  We spent the rest of the day admiring the scenery and wildlife.  Karen and I drove home after a full day in the park feeling like we hadn't even scratched the surface of what this place has to offer. To put it into perspective, the park encompasses 2.2 million acres and we probably laid our eyes on or drove through a couple thousand the entire day!