Yellowstone

The trip so far has been very busy and we have been on the go since we left Santa Fe. So this morning we decided to sleep in, we ended up arriving at Yellowstone National Park at about 9:30am. We entered the park from the west since we stayed in West Yellowstone. We decided to do a loop drive today and stop at any place that caught our attention. Our first stop was at Lower Geyser Basin. We walked the boardwalk and enjoyed all the steam, bubbling mud and different colors surrounding the geysers. Once we finished the walk around we decided that we wanted to get to Old Faithful. So no more stops until then. We arrived at the perfect time - we only had to wait 10 minutes for Old Faithful to erupt. We watched the geyser until it quit erupting and during the entire time I kept snapping photos. I didn't get any that I thought were great but I did get some that I liked. After that was done we decided to hike the Observation Point Trail. A nice little hike that gives you a great view of the geyser basin. From there we continued on to Solitary Geyser and watched it erupt 3 times (it shoots up about 4 feet every 5 to 7 minutes). We then returned to the boardwalk and just in time to see Old Faithful erupt again. We continued around the boardwalk watching all the geyers spewing up water and steam. Once around and then we headed to the Old Faithful Inn for lunch. What an incredible place - just beautiful. After our lunch we drove around to West Thumb and hung out at the lake for a short time and then continued on up to Lake Village. Here we hiked the Elephant Back Trail for a couple of miles. We were watching the time because we really wanted to see Upper and Lower Falls. So we headed up to Canyon Village. We enjoyed the stop at Grand View. The view of the canyon from here is spectacular - it is called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We next made our way to the Brink of Lower Falls - an easy walk all downhill which made the return trip pretty hard. From here we decided to hike a little more so we took the North Rim Trail all the way over to the Brink of Upper Falls. This was a pretty level and easy hike. Pretty much that was our day in Yellowstone. We saw tons of buffallo - a lot of them just walking along and on the roads. We also saw a few elk today as well. We headed back to West Yellowstone for dinner.

Oh, I almost forgot we found four letterboxes! And we didn't find one - it was a mystery and I found the starting point but I had problems with the rest of the clue. Maybe next time we are in the area we can try again.

In West Yellowstone we headed out for a quick dinner and then a little ice cream. We decided we needed a walk after that. So we headed out for three more letterboxes - we walked the Riverside Trail and the Rendezvous Trail and we were successful in all three attempts.

Tomorrow we leave this area to head a little north in Montana to Stevensville to visit friends. Of course we will have to letterbox along the way.