2010

Wednesday, July 14

10:15 Left Clubhouse Inn in Billings, MT. Headed west toward Yellowstone. Ahead are beautiful snow capped mountains.

11:45 Spotted white pelicans flying above us.

12:10 Stopped for gas in Livingston, MT. Nearby the beautiful foothills of the mountains are littered with “ranchettes.” The hills are blanketed with a profusion of wildflowers, especially purple lupine.

1:00 Stopped in Bozeman, MT. Walked around for a while and finally had a good lunch at the Cat’s Eye Café. Bozeman lived up to its reputation as a nice, lively town.

2:15 Stopped at a Safeway in Bozeman for groceries.

4:01 Entered Yellowstone National Park.

4:21 Leave Yellowstone National Park.

4:50 After hunting for a room for a while, checked into the Yellowstone Park Hotel.

5:30 Entered Yellowstone Park

5:43 Encountered traffic jam caused by baby elk. Glad we weren’t going the other way because the elk jam going that direction stretched out for at least a mile.

6:00 Encounter a buffalo jam when we see a bull buffalo casually strolling down the road, demonstrating that he was the boss here. Tons of tourists leaned from their cars to photograph him.

6:05 Take the Firehole Canyon Drive. See lots of people swimming in the river. It looks like a good thing to do.

6:15 Take a walk through the Lower Geyser Basin and see lots of thermal features. Our favorite was a mud pool that bubbled in a comical way.

6:45 Take a drive through the Firehole Canyon Drive and see more geysers. I was able to make one erupt by chanting, “Geyser, geyser, glowing white. Won’t you blow your top tonight?” Lark wondered if there are geysers, shouldn’t there also be girlsers?

7:45 Returned to West Yellowstone after enduring buffalo and elk jams. Had a very satisfactory dinner at Wild West Pizza. There was a bit of a wait to get in, but the pizza was good. So was the beer.