Yellowstone National Park - Day 1

WEST YELLOWSTONE

Yep, that's us and we're on rusticwagonrvandcabins.com web site.  Too funny!

Out our trailer door and onto this grassy area in a corner of the Rustic Wagon RV Park in West Yellowstone.

Passed these pines every morning on our way to Yellowstone National Park.

West entrance

MOUNT HAYNES

Scruffy looking cow elk.

If it's cool enough in the morning, steam is rising all along the Madison River highway.

FIRST MORNING ON MADISON RIVER

Not sure if those are fishermen or photographers.

Buffalo grazing along river.

Gibbon Falls

NORRIS GEYSER BASIN

Norris Geyser Basin Museum

View from museum.

Emerald Spring

Geyserite sinter ring

Eerie...

BRINK OF UPPER FALLS

Falls on the Yellowstone River

At the brink...

Yellowstone River 

LOOKOUT POINT

Lower Falls

Looking downriver, away from the Lower Falls.

Closer look at Yellowstone River.

GRAND VIEW

Yellowstone River

Absaroka Range - pulled off the highway to take photo of distant mountains.

TOWER FALLS

Tower Falls on Tower Creek.

BLACK BEAR

On Tower Falls trail, below store.

Washburn Hot Springs Overlook

Hexagonal basalt columns.

Rock fence???

Hayden Valley buffalo

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS 

Upper Terrace Drive

BERYL SPRINGS

MOUNTAIN GOATS

Petrified tree stands 20 feet tall.

Tourists photographing wildlife were crazy at times, many people forget that these are WILD animals!  These buffalo had people with cameras following them as they grazed.  At one point an experienced photographer yelled at some of them to get back!

Elk overlooking the Madison River.

It's been a long day in Yellowstone...

Critter count at the end of Day 1:

2 black bear

2 chipmunks joined us for lunch!

5 deer

25 mountain goats

75 elk

Too many buffalo to count!

Craters of the Moon

September 2015 we took Scott's first trip to Yellowstone National Park and I am just now (one year later) getting these pictures added to our blog. 

YES, we're on the road again.  Hooray!  Started out a little ominously when we hit and killed a deer not even a mile out of Cove.  This is Scott's second deer this summer, no damage to the truck or trailer unlike the last time when we had major repairs on the Camry.  Both times we missed the first deer, hit the second, and missed the third!  Yikes!  Drove on to Craters of the Moon to spend the night before heading on to Yelllowstone...

CRATERS OF THE MOON CAMPGROUND

Rather "other worldly" area for camping; actually the facility was nice with water, restrooms, 

charcoal grills and picnic tables.

CRATERS OF THE MOON NATIONAL MONUMENT AND PRESERVE

Visitor Center

Plants growing on a lava field...

Closer...

And still closer!  It really was beautiful and amazing that plant life could grow here!  Dwarf buckwheat plants grow with such regular spacing that it appears that someone planted them.  But the regular spacing occurs because the plants are competing for water through their extensive root systems.

See the cinder cone in the distance.

There is a seven mile loop road where you can explore the diverse landscape.

Lava flow.

Miniature spatter cone.

NASA's Apollo Astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Eugene Cernan, and Joe Engle learned basic volcanic geology here in 1969 as they prepared for their moon missions.

At the end of the day we found this "bear" rock formation in the campground!