Doug & Pat

We had never been to Devil’s Tower, as many times as we have been to Wyoming. On our journey through Yellowstone, we had seen a lot of motorcycles, and we continued to see motorcycles on this road, too. I told Doug that I was getting tired of all these motocycles. Around the next turn, I saw that the viewing area for our first good picture of Devil’s Tower held so many motorcycles it was difficult to find a place to park. Our first picture of Devil’s Tower has motocycles in it. Boy! When we got to the entrance, there were hundreds and hundreds of motocycles parked at the store and restaurant there. Come to find out, this was an event connected with the Sturgis meeting of motocycles.  When we got to the Visitor”s center close to the foot of Devil’s Tower, there were hundreds more. We in cars had to go off to another parking area. People were selling water and had set up a misting station. (It is hotter there than in Laramie–lower elevation.) The Tower itself is amazing. There were a few climbers on the face of the Tower; I wouldn’t want to try that. In fact we didn’t want to walk the trail to the top.

When we got back to Mandy’s, our son-in-law, Mark, said that his parents had climbed the Tower. His mother was the first or second woman to do that. They were in a climbing club in college; that’s where they met. Cool!

We leave here tomorrow to go back to Huntsville. We are not looking forward to getting back to the heat.

I did not get to write this on the actual day 3, because we had to change places to stay. This place was a cabin belonging to the huge Lake Hotel. Not only did it not have internet connections, we didn”t have cell phone service. The next day, yesterday, we were traveling and I didn”t feel like doing the blob.

But anyway, on day 3, we got to look at the marvelous Yellowstone Falls and Canyon. The Canyon has the yellow-colored walls that I suppose gave the park its name.  We got to stand on the brink of the Upper Falls and gaze down into the river that catches all this water. The Yellowstone River flows out of the Yellowstone Lake, the largest mountain lake in North America, and flows north to the Missouri River in Montana. The Lower Falls is the tallest and is the one most often seen in pictures. As we drove through the park, we kept wondering about the first people to discover this place. I did read about a white man who was disbeliieved when he wrote about it. When we left the Canyon area, we drove through a very large thunderstorm. Fortunately it had stopped by the time we had to unload our bags into the cabin. We had to turn on the heater the next morning, but it was a beautiful day to finish our journey. We headed to the NE entrance (our cabin was more in the south) since we intended to drive toward Devil”s Tower in NE Wyoming. There were a few bison in the Hayden Valley, but we were early enough to not have a lot of cars stopped. However, we did have to stop for bison in the road. One thing we noticed about buffalo–a bull and cow will almost always be wandering around together. The male makes growls almost all the time. I took a video to record his growls. The signs say, don”t approach the bison, but people are gored every year from getting too close.

The journey to the NE entrance was scenic with some more bison in the Lamar Valley. We didn’t see any more elk and never saw a bear. There was one section called the Grizzly Area, but even with our binnoculars we didn’t see anything. They don’t let prople into this area. Right outside the entrance, was a quaint town called Silver Gate. Everything in the town was a log structure. It had a lot of hotels and outfitters for various things. However, we noticed that gas was $3,30 a gallon! That was higher than in Yellowstone. (captive audience)

On our way to our next stop, which was Buffalo, Wy, we went on another scenic road. There is such beauty in Wyoming (as well as some desolation here in various places, such as Sinclair, Wy).

Here is a picture of our little cabin:

It was a good day yesterday.  We saw many getsers and steaming places north of Old Faithful.  One of our favorite places is where hot water rushes at 4000 gallons a minute into the Firehole River.  Doug was able to touch the river water, but surprisingly, it wasn”t hot, just not freezing cold.  Further along the river away from the steam places, I touched the river and it seemed freezing cold.  There is a swimming hole in this river, but the people comiing out said the water was pretty cold. Each day we have stopped at a nice picnic ground for lunch.  At Mammoth Hot Springs in the north, there were about 20 or so elk just resting in the grass beside the buildings.  See below:

Going south from there, we went through Hayden Valley where the buffalo roam.  There were hundreds.  It took us an hour to go a few miles because so many cars stopped to take pictures.  We took pictures, too, but we didn”t have to block traffic because so many people ahead of us were stopped.  We have to go back that way this morning to go see the Yellostone Falls.  Maybe since it is Monday, some of those people will be gone.  Also it is rainy; that may stop some people.  But if you are here, I guess you take advantage of the days that you have.

Here we are in one of our favorite places.  We actually found a room inside the park for 2 nights.  Comng here we passed through a part of the Teton National Park, which I love.  The beauty there is awesome. Our hotel room is not air-conditioned and has no television.  We were surprised to have internet in the room.  This afternoon we saw Old Faithful erupt and walked around a little.  We had a fine meal at Old Faithful Inn.  On the way back to our hotel we saw about 4 elk, one with very large antlers.  There are a lot of waterfalls here.  I love it.

We are now here at Mandy”s in Laramie, WY.  Yesterday we went over the Snowy Range to Saratoga, WY.  Doug already wrote about the hot pool there that he loves. However, yesterday it was too hot even for him. Mandy and the kids and I had planned to swim in the Municipal pool that is right next to the hot pool.  Strangely enough, the water was bathtub warm.  I guess some of the spring water was used to fill the pool.  The North Platte river runs right beside it.  The hot water runs into the river there and is more bearable. While wading in the river myself, I slipped and fell and threw my camera in the water.  I hope that it can return to workability. Here is a picture of the grandkids enjoying it:

When we went back over the mountains, we stopped at my favorite spot and hiked to the bridge.  A lovely creek of snow melt goes down the hill. I don”t have a proper picture of it on this computer. We saw some fairly large fish in the creek, but I couldn”t persuade the kids to get it and try to catch them by hand.