Return to Yellowstone

Our plan yesterday was to take the drive out the Gros Ventre road again to see where it led and to take in the beautiful countryside we had a taste of on Wednesday morning. We left home at 10:30 and immediately saw that there was a heavy haze over the mountains and we could barely see the Tetons. There were grass fires in Idaho and the smoke had drifted east to the Tetons and beyond. So much for our planned drive. Instead, we decided to go to Yellowstone and take the west entrance into Idaho and drive south on the Idaho side of the National Parks to come home. It was a very wise choice.

We went through the southern entrance to Yellowstone and drove the almost 25 miles to Grant Village. Just as we were approaching the Visitor Center, there were several vehicles on the side of the road. This could only mean that wildlife was seen. We stopped and joined the crowd that was watching these cow elk grazing near the Visitor Center:

We stopped there and walked through the store and left after enjoying an ice cream cone to go up the southern loop toward the west entrance. As we were driving toward Old Faithful, we stopped at the Continental Divide:

where there was this nice lake filled with water lilies:

We had stopped here 2 years ago when we were working in Cody, and this lake has one unique characteristic: it drains into two oceans as it straddles the Continental Divide.

The drive along the southern loop past Old Faithful and the geysers was, as always, spectacular. We had never taken the road from Madison to the west entrance before and it was a new, and rewarding experience. The drive was beautiful along the Madison River:

We once again spotted some elk that were grazing along the river:

There were actually four of them - all cows - but we could not get all of them in the picture. While we were watching them from a distance, several other cars came and there were people all over the place watching these elk:

The elk were far away and there was one family that ignored the rules of not approaching wild game and had to walk all the way out to them to get a closer view:

That is very dangerous as there have been instances where the wild game have attacked people that have gotten too close.

Just as we were about to exit Yellowstone at the west entrance, we spotted one last elk that was resting along the river:

As soon as we exited the Park, we entered the town of West Yellowstone and were surprised at how nice the town was and it had a nice western town ambiance:

The drive south toward home was through this part of Montana and into Idaho where we went through several nice towns along the way - Island Park, Ashton, Felt, Tetonia, Driggs and Victor to name a few. The scenery was beautiful and we took many shots along the way, the best of which is below that shows the view of the Tetons from the Idaho side:

It was another great day in Northwest Wyoming and Eastern Idaho and made us aware of many other options for consideration when (and if) deciding whether to find a permanent summer location in this part of the country. It is always great to return to Yellowstone.

Our truck is ready for pickup today so we will be traveling the 55 miles or so to Afton today to drop a bundle on that Ford dealership. It still hurts that Ford had a fix that could have prevented this problem and didn't let us know, and worse, didn't provide any financial assistance to fix the problem...