Yellowstone with Friends!

We left Lander today and drove Miss Doozie to Moran, Wyoming.

Dwayne drove Miss Doozie so I took some pictures on the way - we took US287 and US26, so these pictures are somewhere along that route! The sign on the side is warning of bighorn sheep, but we didn't see any...

Beautiful land

You could always tell where the river was from the vegetation around it!

Purple mountain majesties!

We got checked in to Fireside RV Park - Buffalo Gap, and were led to our spot by cousin Cyndi's husband, Bill! I didn't get pictures of them yet... we hope to be able to spend some more time with them on Sunday when they are both off of work for the day.

We headed off almost immediately to Yellowstone as we had heard from my former co-worker, Julian (from London!), that he and his brother were meeting Roxanne for lunch today at the Fishing Bridge General Store. We met up with all of them and enjoyed visiting with them over lunch! From left - Adrian, Julian, Roxanne, Patti, Dwayne

We got to see some wildlife as we drove around the park (*all the way around the park*) - this was a bison who had just crossed the road in front of some cars in front of us.

Some more bison...

We stopped to see the Brink of the Upper Falls...

The Yellowstone River coming to the Upper Falls...

Right above the upper falls...

The falls...

My sweetie at the upper falls

An elk alongside the road - whenever traffic comes to a stop, the cause is either wildlife or construction...

Another elk by the side of the road.

Mammoth Hot Springs - I had wanted to stop there, but there are SO many people in the park that many of the parking areas are completely full and it just wasn't worth waiting...  :-(

Even though the day was nearly gone, we decided to stop at the Old Faithful geyser area. Old Faithful was not expected to erupt for another hour or so... so we didn't wait around... we plan to go back to that area tomorrow. On a positive note: there was plenty of parking late in the day!

Looking down through the geyser basin...

We took a quick walk through the lobby of the Old Faithful Inn...

Admiring the large fireplace, and the Christmas tree (?!?) - Yellowstone celebrates Christmas on August 25, since there aren't many visitors here in December...

Looking up at the timbers of the upper floors of the Inn.

It was a LONG drive in the Jeep today!