MONTANA DAY 2

Slept well last night except I miss my neck roll pillow and have a sore neck this morning. I improvised for tonight and put a rolled up bath towel inside the pillow case to rest my neck on.
Hubbie and I were the first ones up and we went on to breakfast. After we ate we walked around the property to check out the place and discovered this large bolder sitting out in the middle of the field on the property overlooking the Yellowstone river.

Again there were deer everywhere we looked this morning.

We came back to the cabin to meet with #2 son and Tif and plan our day.

We headed for Yellowstone and were surprised with a herd and Antelope to watch  while we sat in line to get through the gate.

This place is amazingly beautiful and is really hard to describe.
We went into the canyon area and were amazed once again at the beauty and the thoughts of how this deep deep canyon was formed.

As we drove away from the canyon and followed the Yellowstone river we were all wondering just how cold that water was. So son pulled over and Tif and I tested it out, surprisingly it wasn't that cold. The river bed was covered with pointed slick rocks that made wading very tricky and we didn't stay in it long.

There was so much beauty along each road we took.

We had lunch in a little grill in the canyon village and then were on our way to Norris geyser basin.
I had to try the Huckleberry soda and it was very good but really sweet.

The roads were pretty clear until we came upon any type of wildlife and there was what is called a "bear jam" and this bear traffic jam was indeed to view a small black bear on the rock cliffs. We just snapped some pics as we drove slowly by in traffic because we see black bears all the time around our house.

Next up was the Norris geyser basin and this was another amazing place and we were fortunate to walk to the Steamboat geyser as it had a minor eruption.

These geyser pools were steaming hot and my nose burned from the sulfur smell they gave off as we walked through.

We climbed up to about an 9000 foot elevation and the temp dropped about 20 degrees when we got almost even with the snow still clinging to the mountain tops.

These forest were burned in a forest fire back in 1988 and the evidence of all the dead trees covered the ground here.

Next stop on our surprising list for today was Old Faithful. Surprising I say because we didn't expect to get this far down in one day but traffic has been very light today.
We arrived about 30 minutes before the next scheduled eruption and found a prime spot to sit and wait for the event.
As it got closer to the 6:00 eruption time the viewing area got more and more crowded.

The big event didn't disappoint and the National Geographic TV crew got what they came for also.

We ate supper at the cafeteria in the Old Faithful park and I was disappointed for the first time in the food here as my trout Almondine had no taste at all. Guess I wasn't expecting farm raised trout !!
We shopped around in the General store and had ice cream.

We saw several Elk along the roads today lounging in the shade.

As we exited the park we got in a major repaving construction project and it took an extra hour to get out of the park.

Then as we traveled through the little town of Gardenier we had our first deer in the road encounter as a big doe  stepped out from between 2 parked cars right in front of us. Thankfully #1 son saw it and slammed on the brakes letting her cross the road safely one more time !!!
We made it home with him driving very defensively about 11:00 and all of us headed straight to bed.
Thankful for another wonderfully blessed day and for the blessing of health so that hubbie and I are able to enjoy a trip to witness personally the wondrous creations of our Heavenly Father.
God Bless and Good Night