Yellowstone

At the last minute, we decided to drive down to Yellowstone yesterday. Good timing too, since it's closing after this weekend for the winter. What an amazing place! I felt like we were racing through it because we had limited time before it got dark. We probably only saw about 10% of it--we're definitely going back when it opens next year.

Driving in, at the West Entrace:
I didn't know that the ground was so... steamy! There was steam billowing up all over the place in the park: It almost felt like the set of a science fiction movie:

Steamy, bubbling pits in the ground:

We saw some animals, but nothing spectacular. These are some lady mooses, I think:

Coyote? Wolf? Coyote, I think:

We had to see Old Faithful, of course:

We turned a corner, and what did we see?


This buffalo was in no rush!

It's getting dark, and we had to leave, even though there was so much left to see:

It's not snow; it's sulphur, maybe? It looked salty.

It was dark by the time we left through the North Entrace. That was disappointing because the mountains were even more spectacular there than in the southwestern part of the park. We drove through Mammoth Hot Springs, and it was just a little after dusk and it was like a whole herd of elk had taken over the little village! There must have been at least 50 of them all over the street and grass. We rolled down the windows as we drove through, and we could hear their schreeching calls all around us.

We left the park, ate some greasy pizza in Gardiner, and were home in an hour.