Yellowstone National Park
Wyoming was breathtaking. We took Route 14, a smaller windy road, that followed the Shoshone River valley and wow. Just wow it was beautiful! Sunshine was reflecting off the rapids and basking the cliff faces in light. Some very odd and ominous clouds hung in the sky, like a vertical dark curtain, to the West, and we narrowly missed it. We eventually got to Yellowstone and pulled the total tourist move of taking our picture at the big entrance sign. While climbing over Sylvan Pass, the weather again changed and it started to snow. We took a quick stop at a pull off to gaze out over Yellowstone Lake which was soon whited out from the snowfall. Further down the road we saw some buffalo and then we did some short hikes to explore the Mud Volcano, Dragons Mouth Spring and a few other thermal vents. The snow gave way to blue skies and this was the first area packed with your buses.
Somewhere in the Shoshone Valley.
Wyoming weather.
I have no clue what this Lodge is.
UPDATE: Two years later I randomly stumbled upon more information, this is the Smith Mansion. An architectural engineer named Francis Lee Smith spent 20 years building this by himself, by hand, up until the day he died from falling off of the tall central tower while working on it. Here as an article with additional photos and a video tour at the bottom.
Gotta do touristy things from time to time.
Dragon's Mouth Spring.
The first of many traffic jams caused by buffalo.
Next stop was Old Faithful. The clouds returned and this time brought marble sized hail. We joined the masses gathered around the geyser and luckily only had to wait for about five minutes to see it blow. The hail created a white backdrop so you could barely see the erupting water. We hurried back to the car to beat the stampede of tourists ready to get out of the hail. Further along there was a traffic jam of cars taking pictures of some buffalo and Sea Lion suggested we take an alternate road to loop around the jam AND get even closer to another herd she noticed at the far end of a field. We were right next to them. I hoped that we didn't spook one enough for him to headbutt our car! We endured some more traffic slow downs and saw a lot more buffalo as we made our way to the North entrance. Then as we were filling up gas at Mammoth Hot Springs, a herd of elk with a couple calves walked right by the gas pumps! This park is amazing. We camped in Patsy again next to a Montana Fishing camping reserve that had amazing views of the Gallatin Mountain range sweeping either side of the river valley.
Prints Available
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Quite a photogenic young elk.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
We were facing due east and hoped to catch a glorious sunrise ascending from behind Emigrant Peak but it was pouring rain in the morning. We again converted the car from sleep mode to drive mode without stepping outside (who needs a van?) and then traveled Northwards towards Glacier. We got brekkie at a cute bakery called Crust&Crumb in Livingston where we realized how close Glacier NP is to Calgary. Why not go spend a day or two exploring a new city? Sea Lion found a tiny house on Airbnb and we adjusted the plan to stop at Saint Mary's, grab my permits, and then head up to Canada. It was wild seeing the giant mountains of Glacier NP abruptly end and give way to the vast farmlands of Alberta. Patsy also enjoyed the flatness and fresh air and began getting better MPGs. We got checked into the tiny house and then walked down the road to a brewery for dinner, beers, and board games.
View from our campsite on the Yellowstone River.
Sunday was an early morning road trip to Waterton to get my camping permits since I couldn't at Saint Mary's. The heavy snowfall that clobbered Colorado all winter is causing many NOBO's to do a flip-flop and come up to Glacier to hike South after they finished New Mexico. Glacier has a very strict reservation policy for the campsites and the start to my hike was very convoluted to say the least. More on that next post. On the drive to Waterton, heading down a small country road, we came across a cattle herding operation that was blocking the road! A nice old farmer rolled his window down and said "drive slow, don't honk, and you can sneak right by." It was wild being surrounded by cows as I carefully maneuvered through the herd but we made it unscathed. After grabbing my permits we returned to Calgary to walk around the city for a bit, grab some groceries and wine, and enjoy our tiny home for one last night before I hit the trail.
It is a super clean and beautiful city but this shot of the Calgary Tower cracked me up.
Skyline from Prince's Island Park.
Tons of ducks and geese live on the island.
Calgary has some very interesting art and architecture.