Road Trip to Wedding Part V: Back to Yeller-Stone

After an unexpected visit to Rexburg, home of BYU-Idaho, we traveled an hour back to Yellowstone's West Entrance and decided to head north to the Norris Geyser Basin.

First stop at Gibbon Falls. The weather was cloudy and rainy.

Our first bison sighting. 

Here is the Norris Geyser Basin. I'm not sure if the Steamboat Geyser is pictured here but it does spew out steam like a steamboat. It hisses like a tea kettle. It smells like stink bombs here.

The more you know...

It's kind of scary to know this place could blow at any moment.

I had urge to jump into these hot pools of water. Why is that? Looks like a spa to me!

This is not the place to walk the unbeaten path.

This whole place was just strange but cool.

After Norris we headed to Canyon Village and grabbed a bite to eat. It was crowded there so we headed on our way through bear country and got glimpses of the vast mountainside.

Traffic was backing up and then we saw this. Uh-oh. Someone's having a bad day.

We got to Tower Falls and there was a steep trail going down to Antelope Creek. I was looking out for bears.

Tower Falls seen along the trail.

Coming down was easy. Going back up was sucky.

We left there and headed up along the road again. Here's a cool rock formation.

I see animals!

This lady got out of her car and got as close as she could to this elk to take a photo. I was waiting for the elk to gore her.

We got to the Mammoth Hot Springs area of the park which was far north, almost into Montana. There are little villages there and these elk were just hanging out.

Heading north and out of the park.

Au revoir pronghorns.

Adios.

The North Entrance Gate

Good-bye Yellowstone. Don't blow up anytime soon, we'd like to come back one day.

As we headed north and into Montana, Bullwinkle's cousin came running across the road. MOOSE!

We left Yellowstone just before dinner time and we had a long road ahead of us. I reserved a hotel in Missoula, MT and it was about 5 hours away. Eek! 

Montana is Big Sky Country indeed. We stopped in Bozeman and ate at Old Chicago which was pretty good. They had this spaghetti pie entree that was really tasty. 

We got to Missoula around 11 or so and crashed.

Road Trip to Wedding Part IV: Yeller-stone!

We spent the night at the Cody Legacy Inn after a long day of running around from Wall to Cody the day before. We woke up and grabbed a yummy breakfast at Granny's Restaurant and headed west once again.

We weren't on the road long and we came through this tunnel.

We looked to our left and saw this awesome view with a huge body of green water.

We pulled over and parked in the parking lot to get a closer look. It was gorgeous.  It's called the Buffalo Bill Reservoir for the Buffalo Bill Dam.

This is some sort of plug for the dam.

Not sure what this is. They had golf cart shuttles to take you back and forth from the information center so we hopped on and headed over.

The dam information center is on the left.

A closer look at the dam driftwood. 

Looking down

An unexpected stop that was absolutely beautiful!

We headed on the road again and followed the water as it got smaller in width.   We stopped to take in this view along the side of the road. It was starting to get cloudy.

We reached the eastern gate to Yellowstone but it took about 30 more minutes to get to the more interesting stuff. We finally reached Yellowstone Lake and got a glimpse of our first geyser at Steamboat Point.

It smelled like sulfur.

We stopped at Fishing Bridge just in time for a good downpour. We planned out our day while we waited for the rain to die down. We decided to head toward West Thumb and then onto Old Faithful and then the Grand Prismatic Spring.

Geysers at West Thumb. Yellowstone Lake is in the background.

Old Faithful - resting.

Old Faithful spewing!

On our way to the Grand Prismatic Spring.

The prismatic spring was hard to see because of the vapor but you could see the cool colors on the edges.

Elk sighting.

We exited the park via the West Entrance and tried to find lodging for the night to no avail. Everything was booked. If you ever visit the park, make sure you reserve lodging well in advance. We ended up driving an hour away to Rexburg, ID to stay at a Super 8.