We started the day at our lovely cabin in St. Mary, MT.  We opened the door to look at this picture below.  Today was a big day for us in Glacier National Park, which is the American half of the International Peace Park with Canada.  And to those that don't realize it, this park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which puts it in the same league as the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre.  We are getting so cultured..  :-)

This was the first thing we saw this morning when we opened the door to start the day.  I could get used to sites like this in the AM.

We headed into the park along the Going-To-The-Sun Road.  This is really the only road that crosses the park, so it was a bit crowded.  It was a Saturday, which is something you start to dread when you are unemployed.  There are just so many more people around on the weekends -- they are such a bother!

This is the view across Saint Mary Lake.  The first picture is looking west, the second picture is looking east.  The road runs along the north shore.

We decided that we needed to do some hiking.  At the end of Saint Mary Lake there was a trail that had some water falls on it, so off we went.  It was a leisurely hike, not too long, and with a very modest amount of altitude gain/loss.

The first, second, and third pictures show Saint Mary Falls.  The last picture shows Virginia Falls, which was the end of the trail.

Lisa, in the second picture was working on her program goals to overcome her fears by going close to the edge in spite of the cautionary sign.  Yes, Lisa is enrolled on this trip in the Caroline XXXX Women's Center - Surviving The DotCom Layoff program.  This program is specifically designed for overachiever women that get laid off from DotComs in spite of their excellent performance.  There is a backlog for seats in the program which we are trying to take care of as best we can.

On the way out of the woods we chanced upon this deer that was grazing by the path.  it had pretty much completely lost its fear of people, so I was able to get a pretty decent shot of it.  It's just starting to lose it's spots.

As we wended out way across the park after our hike we were able to view lots of terrific scenery.  None of the pictures properly convey the beauty of the scenery.  And there is no way to properly show all the driving-challenged people that were on the very windy and narrow roads. 

We left the park and continued on to Missoula, MT.  We figured we'd get a place in Missoula for the night.  Unfortunately Missoula was booked solid -- go figure!  It seemed there was a "Rock & Roll Days" event which was an old car show, and the local HOG (Harley-Davidson Owners Group) chapter was also having a joint event.  Every hotel and motel was booked solid. 

With wonder we dropped into a place for some dinner to regroup for the night's accommodations.  We headed down the highway again looking for someplace to flop for the night.  We did pass up the Rock Creek, MT Testicle Festival and landed in the Bearmouth Recreation Area.

What? You don't know what a Testicle Festival is?  Why it's a Rocky Mountain Oyster party.  And with that you'll have to ask someone else or look it up yourself.

We found a little place called the Bearmouth Chalet that is a combination Bar, Diner, Casino, RV & Camping, and Motel.   We got the last room available because the next town down the line is having a Rodeo and it's all booked up too.  And for $40.00, including tax, the three of us get to sleep in beds with the bathroom down the hall.  Lisa gets extra points for putting her princess side on the back burner for the evening, and without so much as a whimper about where she might find a decent latté in the morning, agreed to the place.

Day 2

We started the day after a nights sleep that accompanied by the endless noise of traffic from the highway and the much louder trains that seemed to come through pretty steadily all night.  But for forty bucks, including tax, what more could you ask for?

We headed down the highway into a pretty monotonous terrain.  The high point ended up being Bozeman.  After Butte, whose claim to fame seems to be the surface mine that is eating up the town one hill at a time, Bozeman was a breath of fresh air.  We had lunch there, wiped the massive amounts of bug guts off the windshield.  We had to take a picture of it since we had never seen such insect carnage on a windshield in our lives.

        Yellowstone !!

After a while we got to Gardiner and the northern gate of Yellowstone National Park.  This was the original gate that was used by Roosevelt to dedicate the park to the American public.

We proceeded to the Mammoth Hot Springs Visitor area which included a herd of Elk sitting on the lawn.  They seemed to be pretty used to people, and even when some bright tourist walked over with a dog on a leash they hardly blinked.  I wish we could get a lawn Elk for our lawn, they are so becoming, don't you think?

We proceeded up to the Mammoth Hot Springs themselves.  They are really large, forcing you to walk very far from your car.  And of course this was the point, when we were farthest from the car that the heavens opened up with a resounding downpour complete with thunder and lightning. 

The white and gray part of the springs are areas that are now dormant.  The limestone deposits are still there in their interesting shapes, but the water doesn't flow (except when it rains of course).  They might become active again, you never know how the springs will change over time.

The springs themselves are sometimes very colorful.  The white/gray is mostly limestone, the orange is one kind of algae and the green is another kind of algae that likes cooler water than the orange. 

After we got back to car, soaked to the skin, we drove onwards to our hotel at Canyon Village.  Along the way we saw more Elk and even a male with a great rack of antlers.  But we had seen Elk in several states now and were looking for bigger game. 

That's when we came across this Bison ambling along the road.  We have no idea how he got the branch stuck in his ear, but we thought he might be some sort of Bison Poet, or maybe a Renaissance Bison, and the laurel denoted it...

Today was a long travel day, but tomorrow will be devoted to the park.

Day 3

On our second day in the park we were determined to make the most of it.  And since it was raining so hard the first day, and my experience in the Rockies tells me that it always rains in the afternoon, we started early.  Or at least early for us, which meant that we were on the road before 10 AM.

We headed for the north rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Inspiration Point to be precise.  This canyon is a terrific cleft in the earth that has lots of great colors in the rocks on the sides of the canyon.  The rushing Yellowstone Rover below makes it even more dramatic.

Next we headed for the south rim and the south rim trail.  We walked along the river past the Upper Falls, which is about a 150 foot waterfall that has great power. 

We saw some Buffalo along the way.  It was the first time that we had seen them without being inside a car.  Somehow they seem much larger person to Buffalo.  It's a good thing they are so used to people.  Even so, we got lots of warning about how people are gored each year by Buffalo.  The illustrations that go with the warnings are really comical, even though the event isn't.  We thought it was kind of a mixed message.  Maybe the folks that promote the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona was hired to make the safety message illustration.

Further along the trail we came to Uncle Tom's trail which takes you down a lot of stairs almost to the base of the Lower Falls.  The Lower Falls are about 350 feet high and seem to have a lot more Oomph to them.  Maybe it's the shape of the canyon at that point, but the sound is much more acute.

We came to Uncle Tom's Trail which is a set of stairs suspended from the rock face that take you down almost to the base of the falls.  Caroline has a fear of heights and didn't get much farther than this picture.

Lisa and I went to the bottom of the stairs and took the second picture.  You can see the rainbow in the spray down here, and you can also see the spray running off the far wall of the canyon.

On the way up it was clear that Lisa spends a lot more time on the stair master than I do.  It's 328 steps from bottom to top, and at almost 8000 feet above sea level, it's a chore.

After recovering from the stairs we continued down the trail to Artists Point.  This is the most photographed point in the park, according to the park literature.  And it is spectacular.  The photos don't really do it justice.

The first one is looking up to the Lower Falls.  The second picture is looking at a geothermal vent that spews steam and hot water into the canyon down by the river.  There is even an Osprey perched on a pillar of rock, but it's really hard to see at this resolution.

After we got hiked back to the car from Artist's Point we ran into another herd of Buffalo in the parking lot.  We were able to get pretty close since they kept walking near us.  You can see how their winter coats are coming off.

As we continued our journey around the park we kept seeing more Buffalo and even some calves which were pretty frisky.  At one point we were able to watch some adolescents butting heads.  And it occurred to us that if one of them ran into a car, there would be a lot of body work required.  These are really big animals.

We walked around a lot of places where the geothermal activity is happening, but the ones at the lake were particularly colorful.  The colors come from various types of algae that live in the hot water, or from minerals that are present in the geysers and thermal pools themselves.

The pools are fed from deep in the earth.  Frequently, since the water is so clear, you can peer deep into a pool and wonder at the depths of the earth.  It starts to be easy to imagine how the concept of the devil down below, fire and brimstone and the like got started when you see areas like this.  Of course, during biblical times no one attached to the bible knew about this place, but this is not the only place that has activity like this.

We crossed the continental divide a lot of times while wandering through the mountains.  Since Yellowstone does a great job of denoting when you cross the divide, we thought we'd make the occasion memorable.  Imagine Caroline falling off the sign and eventually ending up in the Pacific Ocean, and Lisa falling off and ending up in the Atlantic Ocean - multiple times during the trip.

We came to the Old Faithful Hotel, which is conveniently located near the Old Faithful geyser.  This geyser has been going off on very regular intervals for the last 120 years that it has been watched.  Currently it's going off every 81 minutes.  But that can change at any time. 

The hotel, as you can see from the pictures has that old Lodge grandeur.  There are lots of touches that make it rustically elegant. 

We ended up watching the geyser go off from the balcony over the front doors of the hotel with drinks in hand.  Lisa was very happy with the setup, this I knew it passed the highly respected Lisa Princessometer test.

This is a series of pictures that trace the geyser event itself.  The geyser starts by puffing little bits of steam.  Then it starts to spurt a little water and throw more steam.  Finally it starts to push out some real water and build in height.

The geyser starts to build by shooting a lot of water and steam into the air, as much as 150 feet into the air.  And then it starts to wane as the flow lessens.  And finally the geyser is just a little puffer again until the next time to do the cycle again.

We left Old Faithful and headed towards West Thumb and then Norris and the Porcelain Basin.  The Porcelain basin, shown here, is a huge area of geothermal activity.  There are steadily steaming vents, burbling vents, and pools that are pretty quiet but covered with orange and bright green algae. 

On the way out of the park we saw lots more Bison (proper name for Buffalo) and Elk.  Then we came upon a Moose.  We hadn't seen a  Moose on this trip and were very excited to get a chance.  This cow Moose was chomping away while we popped some frames, and then it headed off.

We continued out of the park through the east gate and the flatlands.  It took a long time to make our way out of the mountains, especially since it was raining again, and heavily at times. 

We did get to see a number of Elk, and even another Moose and calf, but the pictures didn't come out very well since it was getting dark and they were far away.

We eventually ended up stopping for the night in Cody.  This is another somewhat upscale western town.  The restaurant we picked was especially nice.  We wanted it to be very good since this was our last supper with Lisa for quite a while.

Tomorrow we head for Gillette and Lisa gets on a plane for home.

The trip continues on the Great Plains page.