Yellowstone, Day One

We did manage to go into Yellowstone on Wednesday, but it was only for a little over an hour. We drove to the section called Roosevelt and tried to get tickets to the Cowboy Cookout for Thursday or Friday. Failure. Driving back "home" to Cooke City, we were stopped by buffalo. Many times. We were staying just outside of the Lamar Valley, which is where you see most of the wildlife in Yellowstone. That evening we saw buffalo and wolves. The wolves, or coyotes we aren't sure, were far enough away to just know that we had seen them. That area is a den area for wolves, so we are saying it was wolves. The picture above is a common sight in the park. The fire of 1988 fairly destroyed the park. 21 years later, it is still coming back to life. The last day we spent a lot of time learning about the fire, so I will save that info. The picture below is #2's fishing trip. I asked each person if they could only do one thing in YNP, what would it be. #2 said he would want to go fishing. So we rented a pole and he fished in Yellowstone Lake. Well he attempted it for about 20 minutes. Upon catching absolutely nothing in that time, he decided he would rather whittle and throw rocks. We had a nice picnic lunch though. It was a cold day, so we tried to stay in the sun. The beach was warm because it is black sand from the obsidian that the underground volcano has made.

He did get his feet wet, and said it was cold enough to be numbing. He enjoyed whittling with his new knife from Wall Drug.

This is the scene of Yellowstone Lake. It is surrounded by the Rockie Mountains. I walked around the shore where we were, and it is beautiful. A couple was fly fishing around the bend. A few boats sped by. Dragonfly-like insects buzzed incessantly. Mostly it was quiet and calm.

After the fishing trip, we drove through the Canyon Area. That is where the waterfalls are. There are also white water rapids with surprises like this pelican. In the shallows we saw lots of cut-throat trout (too bad for #2 you couldn't fish in that area), and on the rocks were this pelican and another. The whole park is full of surprises.

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That was only half of our day. I will finish it tomorrow. We are in Kentucky now and hope to make it home tomorrow. We will be making one more stop on the trip. Believe it or not we will be stopping in WV. There is a place called Tamarack that we have never been to. It is a place that shows Appalachian crafts.