Montana and headed to Yellowstone

Ga-Ga and the little cousins

Yep, that's P going crazy on the slide

Does B-saurus look like a giant or what?

Sunday, following a little time with the cousins, we headed back East.  That night we stayed in Missoula, MT in a nice, new hotel.  Flat screen TV, plenty of room, a kitchenette...certainly a deal.

The best hotel I've ever stayed at

We headed out in the morning towards our next destination...Yellowstone.  Along the way, we stopped for a brief photo op in Drummond, MT...home of the World Famous Bullshippers.  I'm not sure how Drummond, MT got it's name but the brief search I did shows no Drummonds living there.

 

We pressed on to arrive in West Yellowstone, MT around 3pm.  Early enough to check into our expensive yet crappy hotel room and head into the park for some sight seeing.

 

First stop in Yellowstone, Elk Park

Yellowstone is one place I think everyone should visit at least once in their life.  It's simply beautiful and there's so much to do.  We have only scratched the surface on what Yellowstone has to offer.  I'd love to come back and spend at least a week here. 

 

Girls at Elk Park

Pat at Roaring Mountain

Upon entering the park, we turned North and headed towards Mammoth Hot Springs.  We only had a limited amount of time as the section of park we were in was under road construction and they were closing the road at 10pm.  There was quite a bit we didn't stop and see.

 

Our second wildlife sighting of the day.  The first was a ground squirrel.  Kakes managed to get a pretty good shot but I can't upload her pictures to the netbook.

Sheepeater Cliffs

Waterfall heading north to Mammoth Hot Springs

Liberty Cap

Palette Springs

Minerva Terrace, I think.  I got smart today and tried to photograph the markers so I could at least read the names.

Killdeer in the hot springs

I think the following pictures were taken at the Upper Terraces.  I wish I'd written this up last night when it was a little clearer in my mind.

I know for sure that the next 3 are from the Upper Terrace Loop as we weren't going to get out of the car but couldn't resist checking the thermal area out cup close.  Even with the 2 younger ones complaining that they were tired of walking.

We hadn't seen hardly any animals other than ground squirrels and chipmunks on our first foray in to Yellowstone.  On our drive out of the park it was dusk and the perfect time to see wildlife. 

Elk...we thought these were pretty close

Until we came around a corner and this one was right by the road

Finally, a bison

Traffic was at a stand still not long after we saw the elk.  We didn't know if this was typical around 8:00pm as people are heading out of the park or if there was an accident.  After sitting in traffic for over an hour we came to a pull out that was crowded with cars every which way and people standing at the side of the road pointing.  Papa pulled over and got out to see what was happening.  There had been a grizzly bear in the river and it had crossed over to the road side.  By the time we had pulled up, it had disappeared into some bushes.   There went the opportunity to see our first real bear.  At least of the animal persuasion.

As we headed out of the park, Papa was keeping up with the traffic in front of him.  As you leave the park the speed limit drops to 25 mph (which he didn't see).  He was going around 42 mph and saw a speed limit sign about the same time he saw a park ranger waiting on the side of the road.  If you know Papa in real life, you know that he takes his CDL very seriously and rarely does more than 5 mph over the speed limit.  Sure enough, this "bear" pulled us over.  Luckily, he let Papa go with only a warning.  And so ended our first foray into Yellowstone.