Yellowstone

Everyone has seen photos of Yellowstone National Park. So I will limit what I post here and perhaps give you a different view now and then. These Brewers Blackbirds were bathing in the warm waters running from Old Faithful.

 I was hoping for a nice bull moose, but did see some big elk.

 We smelled a lot of sulphur around the hot springs.

 Perhaps this is how Yellowstone got its name?

 Lots of deep pools

 My personal favorite, the Grand Prismatic Spring.

 Elk in the river.

We enjoyed our visit to the Grizzly and Wolf Center in the town of West Yellowstone.

 About the center:

Grant and Roosevelt are grizzly brothers, rescued as cubs because their mother had to be euthanized. I have an opinion about what should be done to tourists that caused that due to their behavior, but I'll keep it to myself.

 More about these two grizzlies.

 The grizzlies at the center have a useful job to perform.

 Bear-resistant containers....not!

I especially enjoyed being able to photograph the wolves. We didn't get to see them in the wild at Yellowstone. They are there, but our timing was wrong.

 These painted bison are displayed around town.

 On our second day we went east around Lake Yellowstone.

Common Goldeneye on Lake Yellowstone

 Bull elk looking for his harem on a sandbar in the lake.

 He found them.

The river was closed to fishing due to grizzlies in the area. We found out that wolves and grizzlies had been seen the two days before feeding on a bison carcass, but the carcass was gone when we went that way. So one grizzly, but no wolves. Those are Canada Geese in the river.

 We stopped to get a photo of Lower Yellowstone Falls from Artist's Point.

Coyote out hunting. We saw several, and each time I was hoping it would be a wolf.

 This pronghorn antelope was in a hurry...perhaps being chased.

 We saw several herds of bison, and many solitary bison.

 And bison jams.

 The stark landscape of Mammoth Springs Terraces

View of the Paint Pots from the trail above. Smoke from forest fires in the distance.

 Vermillion Paint Pot

 Bubbling pudding-like pools.

 I liked this geyser better than Old Faithful.

Birdie and I crossed the Continental Divide several times on our tours. We finally stopped for a picture at one.

 I'm sorry there will not be a post from the Grand Tetons this year. This is the only picture I took at the north end of the park. You can barely see the mountains through the smoke. As we traveled south, the smoke got worse, making driving visibility poor, and breathing unhealthy. We just drove straight through without stopping.

The worse part was having to cancel our get-together with RVing friend Sheila, and miss out on her tour of the area. She grew up here and was going to show us some unique off-the-beaten path places. I hope we'll get to do it another trip.