Day 7

Today we had planned to go into Yellowstone and go to Norris Springs and Canyon Falls, however, we got about 7 miles inside the park and were met by park rangers. They were hazing the bison today which means they were trying to move them from the outer boundaries of the park to more central areas. They were using a helicopter to scare the bison in the direction they wanted them to go. We were told it would be a 2-3 hour wait before we could go by so we decided today would be a good day to clean house and do laundry!
You can just see the buffalo in this picture as they are going down the hill toward the road. There were hundreds of them moving around. We plan to see Norris and Canyon tomorrow and will hopefully get through the road before they start moving the bison around again. The weather was a little better today but there are snowflakes just starting to fall.

Mammoth Hot Springs, Day 6

We woke up this morning to some new snow on the ground. It was really pretty, all the pine trees just had a little snow on the branches, it could have been a picture postcard.

Today we went to Mammoth Hot Springs. This is a picture of the springs and is called the Palette Spring because of all the different colors. It looks like something that should be in a cave but is not. We saw several small geysers today mostly just steam coming out of the ground but they smell awful. We also saw lots of bison and a couple babies and lots of elk. Some of the elk were right next to the Visitor Center at Mammoth, didn't seem to even notice that there was anyone there!

On our way back to the RV park we took an offrode called Firehole Valley. There were some amazing waterfalls and even a swimming hole but the water was a little cold (about 45 degrees). We spent today with my sister and her husband and their friends and had a great day. Tomorrow we plan to go back into the park to see a couple more things. Today was a great day but we are tired, so it is early to bed tonight!

Day 5, West Yellowstone, MT

We arrived at our campsite in West Yellowstone about noon today. We are staying at the Grizzly RV Park and it is really nice. We are thinking that we may spend an extra day here and not leave until Saturday. We went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center this afternoon. It is a non-profit center where they take grizzlies and wolves that have had to be removed from the wild because of human issues.

This is Jewel and she is a Korelian Bear Dog. They are trained to chase bears so if a bear should come to your house for a visit these dogs will chase them away and scare them so they will not want to come back.

This is Revel and she is 15 years old and weighs 539 lbs. Looks like she was having a tough day! We enjoyed our visit to the center and can go back tomorrow so we may go back early in the morning to see what bears and wolves do in the morning. When we left the center it was cold and snowing! That was about 45 minutes ago and the sun is now coming out - I guess the weather changes a lot here.

I think we are staying in the rest of the evening and will head to Yellowstone National Park tomorrow.

Day 3 and 4 Idaho

We are now in Pocatello, Idaho and decided to just spend a day here because we are tired of packing up and driving. This picture is somewhere in Southern Idaho, beautiful farmland surrounded by mountains. Some of the fields are on the lower part of the mountains and are sloped.

These are tulips that were growing in "Historic Downtown Pocatello". We went down there today to see what was there. Unfortunately, because this is a highly Mormom populated town, everything is closed on Sunday so we didn't get to go into any building/stores, etc. They did have a really cool fountain and lots of old buildings that Wayne liked a lot.

My sister and her husband were on their way to Yellowstone yesterday and had dinner in Pocatello not knowing that we were also in Pocatello - we probably drove by each other and didn't know! We plan to meet up with them in Yellowstone.

Tomorrow we are off to West Yellowstone and will be there for most of the week. We are scheduled to leave there on Friday unless we decide we would like to spend more time. Everything is going very smoothly and the weather today is beautiful. It is very comforting traveling with a mechanical engineer!

Correction

Wayne corrected me - it is Virgin River Gorge not Valley River Gorge. Guess I had a senior moment!

Day 2

We are now in Nephi, Utah which is about 40 miles south of Provo. I am looking at snow covered mountains out the window and it is pretty. We spent last night in Las Vegas (just lost a couple bucks). We drove through Valley River Gorge today. If you have never driven through this gorge you are missing some beautiful country. It is in the far northwest corner of Arizona and is spectacular. I also never realized how flat central Utah is and how much farmland there is. Utah is a very beautiful state. There are some parts of I-15 where the speed limit is 80 mph because it is so flat. This didn't make a great deal of difference to us; everyone just passed us quicker!

Tomorrow we go into Idaho and plan to spend a couple nights in Pocatello. Not sure what is there but thought we would spend an entire day finding out!

On the Road Again!!

Our bags are packed, we're ready to go - we're standing outside our door. Leaving in a fifth wheel, just can't wait to be home again!!

We are beginning our trip today - be back home sometime the first of July!