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An early start was delayed when we were accosted by the biker from the next room. He wanted to share his love of Wyoming, his home state with heaps of info on where we are headed, tips on where we should then go etc Turns out he's a bit of an expert on the more obscure highways and byways. Nice guy but he did hold us up for nearly an hour lol
We set off for a couple of national parks, The Grand Tetons & Yellowstone. We passed a lot of horse properties, frequently crossed the pretty Wind River and were constantly surrounded by the mountains.
We stopped at one point by the wind River; the water was icy cold, super clean and tasted great :-)
We stopped at Dubois, pronounced here duboys, and checked out the museum. It was small but had a lot of Indian and geological artefacts, quite interesting actually.
A little down the road we found a sign for Brooks Lake. A fairly long bumpy ride through Shoshone National Forest to the lake was well worth it, so pretty with a small creek running into it and the awe inspiring Pinnacles on three sides. On the way back to the highway our first proper squirrel of the trip ran across in front of us and scurried up a tree.
We spotted an unpaved trail through the woods, even our GPS had no name for it other than "unpaved road". It wound through the woods and led us to a small stream. Again the water was fabulous and we used it to fill some water bottles and the windscreen reservoir which had run out after all the bugs we collected on last nights canyon expedition. A little past the stream it got too boggy so we did the prudent thing and back tracked to the highway.
Up and over the Great Dividing Range and there they were, The Grand Tetons, snow and glaciers on nearly every peak looking fantastic in the sunshine.
We passed a sign warning about bison on the road, turned a corner and there was a huge herd of wild bison, bloody awesome sight :-) a little further on we found a large herd of wild horses, also pretty awesome specially when they ran as a pack.
We followed Lake Jackson for a lot of miles, there was a colony of pelicans in one area and we saw several eagles soaring above. We stopped for lunch by the lake and the picnic table came complete with a bear aware sign :-)
Each fabulous vista was replaced with yet another as we wound through the park.
Then came Yellowstone, something I'd really been looking forward to. We are here for three nights and from what we've seen today it's going to be unreal. The first thing we found was a geyser area, the West Thumb part of yellowstone Lake. We were greeted to this area by a boiling mud pond. From there a walkway led to the gorgeous blue lake past boiling ponds not of mud but crystal clear water, some seemingly bottomless. A couple of deer came down into the thermal area, clearly knowing their way through the ponds, dodging the areas of thin crust and drank from one of the ponds. A third one was trying to join them but it's path was blocked by silly tourists who wanted to look, oblivious to its distress at them being in the way. A ranger came and got them to move so it could join the other two. Along the path chipmunks skittered around our feet, one was sitting on a seat it's front paws held up in a pugilist stance, so cute :-)
We drove the length of the park as we headed to our home for the next three days in Gardiner. We stopped and explored waterfalls, rivers and mountain vistas. We found an osprey perched precariously on a pole looking for prey, when it took off and soared it was majestic.
We ran into road blocks at a couple of stages, all traffic both ways slowed to a crawl. When we slowly got to the problem it turned out to be a massive bison, calmly grazing beside the road, another time it was for a huge elk buck just off the road. At one stage we were high above a valley and way down below us was the incredible sight of hundreds of bison roaming free, the way it must once have been all through Montana.
we passed many more areas of geothermal activity but time was ticking by so we mentally marked them for another day.
Eventually we started to drag ourselves out of the park, it was nearly 8pm and we'd taken 11 hours to drive 5, so many stops to gaze in wonder lol
But before we could exit the park at the north end we found ourselves in the middle of a couple of dozen mule deer, wandering calmly and grazing at Mammoth Springs. Of course we had to stop and take pics :-)
It was a short run from there out f the park to Gardiner, a busy little town and our accommodation for the night. We got some sort of an upgrade to a huge suite. I'd booked one with a full kitchen but OMG it has it all, stone floors, over the top furnishings and so much space you could literally live here if you could afford to lol
We quickly got settled, did some overdue washing and had another great home cooked meal about 9.30
It's been a totally amazing day. We loved Yosemite last year but these two parks today have blown us away, we're so glad we planned on 3 nights here and are looking forward to what we'll see in the next couple of days.
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