Livingston, Yellowstone and Home

We were up and ready to go following a continental breakfast at the hotel by 8:30 AM. We took I-80 to Livingston which was only 25 miles from Bozeman. We liked Livingston, as a town, slightly better than Bozeman although Bozeman has all the big name stores. This entire area of Montana is beautiful and we would look seriously at acquiring property at some point anywhere between the Montana state line and Bozeman/Livingston. The drive to Yellowstone was as spectacular as the drive to Bozeman and we stopped at a rest area along the way on the Yellowstone River where we caught these shots:

The family that was fishing in the second shot hadn't caught any fish - at least while we watched them float by.

One of the goals for our trip was to experience the final entrance to Yellowstone that we hadn't experienced up to now - the northern entrance through Gardiner, MT. We have now entered the park from each of the 5 entrances. The city of Gardiner was kind of nice - a small, tourist town, in a different kind of area as far as landscape is concerned:

It didn't take very long - probably 5 miles or so, before we reached the visitors center at the Mammoth Lodge on the northern loop road. It was familiar territory from that point on, heading south. We took the eastern road through the park as it was not only shorter, but the wildlife, traditionally, is more plentiful on that side of the Park. We were very happy to see our first herd of bison. Having gone through the opening day of bison hunting in Jackson, we were happy to see these calm and protected animals in the Park:

It wasn't more than a couple miles further south when we spotted this second herd:

And then, there was a third group a little further south along the river. This group was in and out of the water and we were watching them from a small turnout along the highway:

There was an unusually small calf in this group that caught our attention as the birthing season was long past:

As we were watching them, they all began entering the water and crossing the river at the same time:

They kept coming and coming and we began to think they were coming for us. The calf was staying close to its mother and it was a wonder it didn't drown on the swim across the river:

They marched directly at us and we got back into the car to watch the rest of the parade. They marched right through the turnout, passed our car and crossed the road:

Whew! That was exciting. :)

Our trip wound up at 4:15 when we arrived back home after driving through the Tetons with a thick smokey haze still blocking the view of the mountains. We feel sorry for the tourists who only have a day or two to spend here and will not get a real good view of these majestic mountains.

We are so glad we took this trip and discovered some new and beautiful areas that surround these Parks. It is almost a certainty that we will return again next year...