Day 7 - Yellowstone!

As I said, with no camp to strike we got a nice start the next morning and we headed toward Yellowstone. To get to the park, we were taking the Beartooth Highway to the Northeast Entrance. As I keep saying: Absolutely Beautiful. The road winds through mountains top to bottom, with beautiful overlooks everywhere.

We hopped out at a couple including one summit where the wind was blowing about as hard as I have ever felt:



There was an old fire lookout that provided amazing views as well, but the thing I remember most about it was the flowers on the road up to the tower:



So, we are miles into the trip, we’ve all been craning our necks along the drive to see the sights, when J1 looks at me and says, “You know, this would be great in a convertible.” So, after lengthy consideration, I decided that he would be allowed back in the car (In all fairness – I really couldn’t have happier – perfect delivery, perfect timing, it brought tears of pride to my eye).

Also, this was the first time my boys had seen Mountains. They’d both been through the Appalachians, so they had technically seen mountains, but out West that word takes on a different meaning; these are Mountains.

I love driving these roads for the little, surprise events: these cascades are just a passing attraction:



Finally, we reached Yellowstone, or at least got really close. We hit Cooke City and stopped. Completely. Construction had lowered the next several miles of road to one lane, and cars were being guided through in groups about every ½ hour. So, we left our car in line and went into a mini mart for some quick supplies. Finally, we received a pilot car and we were on our way. We had to drive nearly across the park to get our chosen campground, but we got there, got the tent set, and headed out to see some sights.

Immediately we were greeted by a fox:



Apparently the auto-focus on my camera hated the fox, because it insisted on focusing on the heather behind it, but you get the idea.

On to Mammoth Hot Springs. At this point it was twilight with full on sunset coming quickly, but we got to see the springs, but thanks to the tripod, I was able to get some nice pictures:









Leaving here we went back to the campground. It was about this point that J1 stopped sleeping in the tent, deciding that the car was a touch warmer and softer.