Destination Bozeman

First of all, I didn't get the blog entry done until we returned home today. The Internet connection in Bozeman was sporadic and we had to leave this morning before I could finish. Actually, I never got it started.

We left early in the AM yesterday for Bozeman and we took our time as we wanted to stop at Mesa Falls in Idaho and any other places that looked interesting to us along the way. The Falls are located just north of Ashton, ID and we had come past the turnoff to these falls on our last trip home from Yellowstone when we came out the West Yellowstone entrance and drove through Idaho to come home. Somebody told us not to miss this so we planned the little side trip on this visit to Bozeman. It was fairly easy to locate and because there were actually 2 falls - lower and upper - we visited the lower falls first:

The lower falls were located in an area that was very difficult to see. The viewpoint was not the best and although we took several photos, this is probably the best:

We didn't spend a lot of time at the lower falls and we moved on to the north to see the upper falls:

This was a special treat. There was a path that went from the visitors center down a long and winding set of stairs to the falls. As we approached the falls, it looked like a negative edge swimming pool:

Once we past the top of the falls, the stairs contained several different landings where we could get some excellent views of the falls:

The river is actually the Henry's Fork of the Snake River, and the river looked amazing from the falls downriver toward the lower falls:

I mentioned the winding stairway that led to the falls and we grabbed this shot to give you an idea of how it wound around the hillside to provide the great views of the falls and the river:

The remaining part of our drive to Bozeman was through the Gallatin National Forest along the Gallatin River and was nothing short of spectacular scenery. The road followed the river for at least the last 50 miles and we passed many areas where rafters were enjoying the river. Some of them looked like they had barely enough room to squeeze the raft through the boulders and rocks in the river, and we took these shots as examples of the rafters:

All of the rafters we saw were wearing helmets which said a lot about the rapids they were traveling through.

We arrived in Bozeman around 3:30 PM and got settled into our room and headed out to explore the town. The town itself is not that impressive but we located the Costco and did our planned shopping and returned to the hotel. We stayed at the TLC in Bozeman, mainly because the reservations weren't made until the last minute and most of the other hotels we wanted were booked. It worked for one night and the first leg of our trip was a huge success...