Summer Greetings

From Yellowstone National Park

  I hope you all are having a wonderful summer(or winter!). I have been so busy this summer~ we just returned from a trip to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, so thought I would share some pictures with ya'll. It takes us 2 days to drive to the Park from here in southern Colorado. While husband and children think its 'boring', I find it quite enjoyable. Looking over the plains to the east as far as the eye can see its easy for me to understand why my Grandma Tressa didn't like visiting Washington from Kansas...(.there were too many trees for her and she felt too closed in.) I think its beautiful.

  We always spend our first night in Thermopolis, Wy. Its a really neat little place, they have the world's largest mineral hot spring in town, and just outside of town, we stayed at the Fountain of Youth R.V. Park. (above) You can see the hot mineral springs here~ all natural~ in the early 1900s, they were actually drilling for oil right behind where I took the picture from, and hit this hot thermal spring~ the water comes out of the spring 130 degrees f, and flows at a rate to completely replace all the water in the 3 large cooling pools  every 11 hours.  Not only did husband and children enjoy all afternoon, but they had to have one more hot dip in the morning before we left.

 Also in Thermopolis is the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. Its a little gem of a place~ they have one of the largest assembled dinosaur fossils in the US, and if you want to dig around and find an actual fossil, you can go on a day dig~ its all on their website. This little cutie was my favorite of all the fossils there... a bird called Phamphorhynchus sp. , 150 million years old from the late Jurassic period...if you look closely at the beak, just look at all those teeth!!!!  Something tells me it probably didnt eat nuts......

  Walking amongst the assembled fossils really makes one feel small and very insignificant

  Yellowstone is beautiful any time of year, but early spring is wonderful because everyone has their babies out frolicking. Baby buffalo are referred to as 'red dogs' because they are so red.  (There was still snow in the upper elevations while we were there). I love the buffalo, they are my favorite part of visiting the park.

  Second favorite, is Old Faithful Inn.  No...not Old Faithful Geyser, but the Inn itself.  I love it and if they ever had a winter program to be the closed in Innkeeper, IM THERE! 

   Just aside the Inn is Hamilton's Store~ my absolute favorite building, because the front and porch is composed entirely out of natural knotts and burls. 

  We stayed in Madison campground, and mama elk had their new little babies out aside the river. Elk babies have spots just like deer do~ soooooo cute.

 Every day we got to see some Buffalo~ they roam peacefully around the park....but just before we got there, we heard on the radio, some idiot extraordinaire tried to pet one on the boardwalk and got head butted and sent to hospital. Rangers said their havent been any gorings yet this year, but its still early and there are always a few, so REALLY...HONEST~ the animals in Yellowstone are wild creatures~ its not a zoo...they are not tame pets!!!!  

 Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone...spectacular, no picture could ever reproduce being there

  This is above Tower Fall, getting up into the Lamar Valley...hello...Beautiful! Wish you were here!

 Old Faithful Geyser~ just as Grande as ever

 Coming home thru Grand Tetons National Park.  If you have never been to Yellowstone, I highly recommend!