Caroline, Mike, Nancy and I took a snowmobile trip into Yellowstone for a day.  It was a 90 mile tour from the south entrance to Old Faithful and back.  It might not sound all that appetizing at first blush, but we can attest to it being a truly wonderful day for all of us.

We got the Snow Lodge at the south gate pretty early in the AM.  Thank goodness we got our Eagle passes, and with the windows all fogged up, the gatekeeper was convinced we were all one family.  The vans on the tracks were a constant fascination. 

The "trail" is actually the park road which doesn't get plowed all winter long.  It does seem to be a mecca for snowmobiles, and this pic gives you an idea of how many there were.  We were told that 300,000 visitors come during the winter, compared to 3 million in the summer.

We each got a sled.  They were 500cc machines, and we started slowly.  But everyone got into it pretty quickly.  The speeds got up to 55 and 60 MPH after lunch, and there was no stopping this crew.

Mike instigated this whole part of the trip.  And the grin stayed on his face the entire day.  It was an inspired notion, maybe we'll have to trust his ideas more frequently now..

Nancy and Caroline at the river where we saw the Otter.  And then the girls accompanied by Mike for the Charlie's Angels pose with Old Faithful in the background.

On the way out we saw a Buffalo grazing on the algae that lives in the heated water around the geysers.

We stopped on the way back at some frozen water falls.  And we couldn't resist playing on the natural snow slide.  Caroline shows us her Olympic snow sliding form.

We did cross the divide on the out and the way back. 

Caroline gets a hot cocoa after a long day on the sled.  Well, it was a little more than just cocoa.  And she slept a bit on the way back.