Saturday my grandparents and I drove up over the Beartooth Mountains to Yellowstone National Park. This drive is one of my favorites, you’ve seen my pictures from my first day driving to Canada? This starts out in the same direction but instead of turning toward Red Lodge on the Chief Joseph Highway, you turn the other direction toward Yellowstone.
We were blessed with a sunshiny day, barely touched by a breath of wind! Driving along enjoying this blissful day we suddenly came to a screeching stop! There out of no where a massive bull moose decided to run across the road! Unable to take a picture because I was driving I quickly begged my Grandma in the backseat to take one with her phone…her phone wouldn’t open in time 😦 Moose are one of those wonderful creatures you only see every once in a while. They tend to stick to marshy places away from humans. I’m told they’re more common in Alaska but here in Yellowstone Country they number less than 200 and of those I’ve only seen 3 in the last 20 years!
We moved on from the moose, entering Yellowstone, and driving up through the Lamar Valley. In this area you can commonly see wolves. We missed out on those but we did get to see the big herd of buffalo I haven’t told you about yet from our Canada Trip ride in Yellowstone. They had finally moved far enough from the road that we locals could enjoy them without being frustrated at traffic or terrified that some unenlightened tourist was going to be gored at any moment! We cruised right along to our picnic spot and discovered another small miracle, there were no mosquitoes out! We ate our fried chicken, coleslaw, and fruit salad in peace.
Not really being in a hurry now, we enjoyed driving over Dunraven Pass to Canyon Village where Grandma and I indulged in some good ol’ fashioned Wilcoxson’s ice cream. We were taking the long way around but didn’t really mind 🙂 especially when we got to Old Faithful Geyser and found out we had perfect timing! While that famous geyser erupted another one farther down the walkway erupted too! This geyser had only erupted 14 times total in the last year, unlike Old Faithful going off predictably once an hour. This Geyser is called Giant Geyser, its initial eruption reaching 275 ft! This geyser is also unique because it continuously erupts for a full hour after the initial blast. We were able to walk at the pace of two dizzy post-surgery grandparents, taking about 20 min. to get up to the geyser, and still see it at nearly its full height! Along the walkway we also enjoyed the many other geysers that fill this basin and we were really proud of Grandpa…He has had surgery on his neck recently that has brought a lot of feeling back to his feet. He walked with Grandma and I all the way around that big loop and even had us trying to keep up to him! We ate dinner at the Lodge before pointing our headlights toward home.
What adventures did you have Labor Day weekend? Are you looking forward to Fall?
Thank you, fellow adventurers! You can follow the lilmissbearpaw blog page on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @lilmissbearpaw for sneak peeks into upcoming posts and my adventures. This will also be a great place to share your own adventures!