Yellowstone 2

We moved from West Yellowstone to the north end of the park at the Mammoth headquarters area.  Again we stayed just outside the park in a private campground at Gardiner, Montana.  We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary by going to Rosie's.  It was a unique restaurant in the old section of Gardiner recommended to us by the people in the campground office.  They certainly steered us to the right place.  The meal was excellent and we could look out onto the Rockies across the valley.

We encountered buffalo almost everywhere we went.  These decided to set up a road block.

Once we got through the road block we headed on to Tower Falls.

Looking downstream from the falls.

Another view downstream.

On the way to the falls we saw these two bruins resting in the shade.

Another group of elk.  These are bulls with their antlers still in velvet.

Here are some angry clouds over the peaks.

We had gone clear to the northeast entrance to the park travelling through the Lamar Valley and then turned around and started back as it was getting late in the day.  We stopped at a pullout and this gentleman told us  he was watching a grizzly bear stalk some buffalo calves.  There was a herd of maybe 300 or 400 cows and calves in the valley and clear at the back was this grizzly crowding up to the herd.  The cows and calves started off across the valley towards us but a small bunch of bulls stayed behind and discouraged the grizzly.   Since the grizzly could not get past the bulls he crossed the river and headed back into the hills.  He was about a half mile away but with binoculars he was quite visible.  I took this picture with my lens extended as far as possible but he is still just a small object in the middle of the picture as he retreats up the hillside.  

Heading on back we saw more buffalo and these two bull elk which Marcia was able to photograph up close.

We had a great time in Yellowstone.  The scenery with the snow gave a totally different perspective.  It added another dimension to our Yellowstone experience. 

Yellowstone

We drove into Yellowstone's east gate to see a sign that said: Chains or snowtires required.  I asked the lady at the gatehouse how bad it was and she said they were not recommending anyone towing a unit(like the Dancer)  to continue into the park.  Well gee we drove all this way to see the park, how bad could it be?  

We drove all the way through the park to West Yellowstone because it is at a lower elevation.  We visited the Grizzly Discovery Center which is a home for bears, wolves and eagles that have to be confined because of injury or threats to humans.  Here are two of the grizzlies in their enclosure.

This is one of several of the wolves.

We stayed in a beautiful Forest Service campground just outside of West Yellowstone.  It was a beautiful campground and unlike most Forest Service campgrounds this one had electric hookups at some of the sites.  The Madison River which is the major drainage flowing west from the Park flowed right through the campground.  Here is a picture looking across the river to the mountains in the background.

Since I enjoy cooking Marcia thought I should include a picture of yours truly using my cast iron skillets I got for Christmas.  I usually cook breakfast and the skillets are working quite well.

We had snow about every day we were at Yellowstone.  Here is the view out our dining room window while enjoying a delicious breakfast the second morning we were there.

The Gibbon River flows into the Madison but before it does it has some beautiful falls.

Here are the vagabonds taken by the falls.

Continuing our trek through the park in the snow we caught these elk cows grazing.

I saw these two swans coming down to the rive and was able to catch them as they were landing.

The elk were just beginning to drop their calves.  They tend to go off by themselves to calve which accounts for a high mortality rate for calves lost to wolves.  This cow decided to have her calf in the riverbed.  This is the Yellowstone River which flows north from Yellowstone Lake.

The lower falls of the Yellowstone located in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone are stunning.

This is downstream from the falls showing the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

We had a great time and took a lot more pictures than this but this post is getting long so I will add another post about the second half of our stay in Yellowstone.  It is very difficult to capture the grandeur of such an amazing place.

Bighorns & Cody

We left South Dakota in our rear view mirror and  headed into Wyoming.  We went through Gillette Wyoming home to one of the largest coal mines in the world.  Between coal, methane gas and oil this region of the US produces one sixth of our energy needs, that's pretty amazing.  Our real destination showed up a little later as we were travelling up I-90.  Here they are, the Bighorn Mountains.

The road up was quite a trip.  It gains about five thousand feet and comes complete with hairpin turns and steep grades.  This is where we were just starting up.

The trip up was well worth it when we reached the top.  After climbing over the pass you drop down into a huge basin that encompasses a large part of the Bighorn range.  We chose a site in the Bighorn National Forest at one of the Forest Service campgrounds called Tie Flume.  It sits at about 8400 feet and is beautiful.  Here is the view out the back window of the Dancer.

This is a little closer view of the stream running behind our campsite.

Marcia and I took a hike up the stream and found quite a bit of snow remaining in places.

Marcia encounter this crazy mountain man while walking along the stream.

This area was a real treasure.  What made it even better was the fact that since trash services had not begun yet and the water was not turned on it was free.  Now that is my kind of campground, beautiful and free.  Here is a photo as we approached our site from along the stream.

Here is another shot showing the Dancer in our site.

Sadly the next morning we had to leave and continue our journey.  There is an old saying that goes what goes up must come down.  Yep the road down was just as steep and winding as the one going up.

We headed on west to Cody, Wyoming.  It is a nice town at the base of the Rocky Mountains  named after Buffalo Bill Cody.  It is the home of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, www.bbhc.org, which I would deem a must see attraction for anyone travelling in this area.

We had this beautiful rainbow to send us on our way as we left Cody headed towards Yellowstone.

Wind Cave

Wind Cave National Park lies adjacent to Custer State Park directly to the south.  It is one of the largest cave systems in the world underground and is where the prairie meets the mountains above ground.  Here are Marcia and Moosie checking out the sign by the visitor center.

The topography at Wind Cave is similar to Custer State Park with rolling prairie and forested hillsides.  Wind Cave is a bit more open prairie as the two come together.

Underground is a whole different world.  This shows some of the box work which occurs throughout the cave.  This cave contains 95% of the box work in the world.   

Wind cave is one of the largest known caves in the world.  There are currently close to 200 miles of the cave which have been explored.  This shows the colors present from different elements in the sedimentary rock which the cave is comprised of.

This shows the vista looking across the prairie from a turnout.

Here we have some of the native creatures which abound in the area.

This is back in Custer looking north from a high(read scary) lookout towards the Needles area of the Black Hills.

On our return trip to the campground we explored a forest service logging road and came across this elk bounding through the trees.  It is not a great picture but she did not leave me a lot of time to grab the camera and shoot.

Tomorrow we leave this beautiful area and head into some even bigger mountains.  

Custer State Park

Custer State Park is one of our favorite places.  It is a large park located at the southern end of The Black Hills in South Dakota.  This whole area is rich in natural wonders.  We plan to spend a few days here exploring.

The first picture is from an overlook and gives an idea of the beauty of this whole area.

We took the wildlife loop drive and got to see lots of different animals.  This pictures shows part of the herd with cows, bulls and babies not very old.  A couple of the bulls in the foreground are wallowing.

The buffalo were right by the road.  These were only a few feet away.  They are losing their winter coats so are a bit shaggy.

A little further down the road we encountered this herd of burros.  They were standing in the road and I had to kind of weave around them to get through.

 

This fellow came right up to the truck looking for a handout and decided my mirror would be a good place to scratch a little. 

Continuing down the road next we came across some pronghorn antelope.  This one was standing right by the road.  It us unusual to get this close to a pronghorn.  You usually see them fleeing over a distant hill.

The buffalo herd in Custer is maintained around 1300 head which means they have too reduce the population every year.  In the fall every year they have a roundup of all the buffalo in the park.  They move all of them into some large corrals adjacent to these working pens.  These are made pretty strong to handle those 2000 lb bulls.  They sell off the excess primarily to buffalo growers all over the country.

We stopped at a nice trail which followed a creek bed for a mile or so and returned to the trailhead.  The creek was dry as are a lot of them here.  It is extremely dry for this time of year so it could be a bad year for fires.

We had a nice time at Custer and will probably go back for another day but not until the beginning of the week as this weekend is a free weekend and they are very busy.  We are looking at exploring Wind Cave tomorrow because it is supposed to be raining.  We figured the rain would not be too bad in a cave.

Wedding and on to Nebraska

We started our long awaited trip to the western states on Friday the 11th.  Our first stop was in Wabash, Indiana to attend the wedding of our niece Mallory Baer and her now husband Bobby Lynn.  We had a great time at the wedding and got to see some of our relatives.  We also want to thank Patty(Marcia's sister) and Rex Baer for their great hospitality.  They insisted we park our RV at their house while we were visiting.   When we arrived on Friday evening they had a campfire going with all of the fixings for a cookout for us.  They have a lovely home and we thoroughly enjoyed our time staying with them.

Here is the happy couple dancing at their reception. 

Here are Brian, Jennifer, Alyssa, Cole and Quinn in downtown Roann before the wedding.  We were glad to see all of them and spend some time together.

We left Sunday morning and continued on westward.  We crossed central Indiana, central Illinois and southern Iowa travelling through some of the best farmland in the world.  We had a long day and arrived at a Rathbun Lake Corps of Engineering's campground late in the afternoon.  It was nice and we were about the only ones in that particular campground.  I walked down to the lake at sunset and got this shot.


We left there and drove most of the day across the rolling hills of southern Iowa to arrive at Nebraska City, Nebraska.  We are staying in a nice campground on the edge of the city. Today we went to the Arbor Day Farm.  We have belonged to the Arbor Day Foundation for several years and have wanted to visit their home and the grounds.  Here is the entrance to the main exhibits.  We walked a trail that wound around through the wooded grounds with lots of points of interest.

The very helpful lady at the store did a good job taking our picture enjoying the rocking chairs on the porch.


The story of the Arbor Day Foundation is very interesting.  J. Sterling Morton was a Nebraska statesman very interested in planting trees in Nebraska.  On ground that he owned, he laid out a beautiful estate planting many varieties of trees.  He was responsible for making Arbor Day an official national day of planting trees.  On the first Arbor Day over a million trees were planted in Nebraska.  His farm was later the home of the Arbor Day Foundation which still calls this beautiful farm it's home.  Here is a picture of  Morton Mansion.


While touring the grounds of the Morton estate we came across this tree hugging moose.  How Moosey managed to get into that tree is a true mystery.


We are heading towards the Black Hills tomorrow.