Yellowstone!

Friday May 19
We drove from Deer Lodge, Montana to Yellowstone National Park.  The day started out cold but mostly sunny. 

KOA in Deer Lodge Montana

Creek by campsite

Rocky Mountains near Butte, MT

 When we crossed the mountains near Butte the ground was covered with snow at the higher elevations but the roads were clear.

At lower left is part of the old Bozeman Trail built in 1860s.

Near Yellowstone is a lake that was created when an earthquake caused a large landslide in 1959.

 We arrived at Yellowstone about 2pm and headed immediately for the campground. First we had to deal with Yellowstone rush hour traffic.

  Luckily, we got the last spot large enough for our camper.  After setting up camp we headed for the Old Faithful geyser area.
Amazing scenery.

Lower geyser basin

Third visit to Yellowstone

Snow sliding off the roof of the vistor's center created this neat arch

Mountain bluebird at Old Faithful geyser

Old Faithful at rest

We had some time to kill before the next Old Faithful eruption so we took a hike but did not get far before we came across a large bison blocking the trail.

 We had to take a detour which took us up the mountain and gave us a view of the Old Faithful Inn
. As you can see in the pictures there was quite a bit of snow still around and it was cold and windy.

Old Faithful Inn

Hot spring

 After our detour we had to hurry back to watch Old Faithful put on it's show

Bluebirds again

Old Faithful warming up

Building up steam

Thar she blows!

After watching Old Faithful we walked around the geyser basin.

Upper geyser basin

Looking into hot spring 

Interesting tree roots

Colorful hot spring

Castle Geyser which we saw erupt the next day.

Old Faithful geyser from the distance

Run off from geysers and hot springs

Old Faithful Inn

It was cold Friday night with lows near freezing.  We did not have any hookups, no wifi, no phone service so we were on battery power.