Sept. 14, 2016 a day in Yellowstone- visit to Fountain Paint Pots, Midway Geyser, and Old Faithful

Cold and foggy today- 40 degrees.
Left for Park at 8:05 and entered the West Entrance.

On the drive to the Fountain Paint Pots we saw a herd of elk and a big horn sheep  on the right side  (south) of the bus in a field.

We arrived at the paint pots at 8:45am- parking lot very small. We had 45 mins to walk around and see the paint pots but it was hard to see the brilliant colors because of all the fog and some steam from the thermal waters.

On the bus at 9:20 for a short drive to Midway Geyser Basin. We had a hour to explore and see the large expanses of thermal waters by walking on the wooden boardwalk. Again, we had fog and when it cleared periodically we could see the bright blue thermal waters.  In one area there were several baseball hats that were in the pools because the winds would blow the hats off the heads of visitors.

This was enough time to walk all around and see the pools and take photos.

10:45 a, Back on the bus and on the way to Old Faithful and when we were driving to the parking lot we saw Old Faithful erupt from the bus. We were told to be ready to leave at 1pm and that Old Faithful would erupt before then so we could see it up close.

The Lodge was surrounded by some gift stores, grocery store, and restaurants. We found out the next eruption was around 12:10 pm so we headed to the cafeteria to have an early lunch and then get seats for the eruption.

This turned out to be a good plan because Old Faithful erupted around 12:20 pm and everyone headed for the cafeteria afterwards. We had time to visit the lodge and walk around before we had to get on the bus.

There was enough to see here and to do that we could have spend several hours here.

We got back to the hotel around 2pm which gave us time to do our laundry and then take a walk downtown taking photos and shopping before  dinner.

West Yellowstone Montana down town view

The plan was to visit West Thumb tomorrow since we have to pass by when we leave the park to go to Grand Tetons.

We had made reservations for Bullwinkle's and had a great dinner with blueberry pie for dessert.

Back to the hotel to rest and bed.

Sept. 13, 2016 we leave Cody for our visit to Yellowstone

Today we leave Cody to go to West Yellowstone for a two day visit to Yellowstone. The weather is drizzly and a little cool.
We left at 8am for the trip to West Yellowstone- a  3 hour drive but it will be longer since we will be making a few stops along the way.

Our first stop at 8:20 am was at the Buffalo Bill Dam -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bill_Dam.

We stopped at the visitor center to see the exhibits, take photos of the dam and some in our group shopped in the gift store.

8:50 back on the bus and to our next stop at the Pahaska Tepee gift store and lodge. We got there at 9:45 and had 30 mins to shop at gift store, use bathrooms, get coffee or snacks and take photos. It was a light snow outside and the trees had some snow on them.

Pretty cool place...http://pahaska.com/
Originally a lodge founded by Buffalo Bill.

Scenery on the drive to the entrance of Yellowstone

At 10:30 am we entered Yellowstone and after a short drive the bus driver saw a bunch of cars pulled over on the side of the road. He slowed down and we saw a grizzly bear foraging in the bushes by the side of the road. It came out of the bushes near the bus and stood up and I was able to get some good photos of the bear standing. Really cool and exciting!

At 11:30 we stopped at a campground- fishing bridge- which was next to Lake Yellowstone.

 Here we were to supposed to have a picnic but the benches were all wet from the rain. We used our raincoats to sit on while we had our lunch. I bet this spot is beautiful on a sunny day. There was a cafe gift store where we bought postcards and coffee.
On the bus again at 12:15 and on the way to Artist Point we saw bison on the side of the road.

We stopped at Artist Point which is supposed to be the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It had a spectacular view of the waterfalls.
http://www.yellowstonepark.com/artist-point/

Our next stop was Yellowstone Canyon Village which was like a small town- grocery store, laundromat, visitor center, and restaurants. We had 20 mins. here to visit the visitor center.

Our bus took us on a drive up into the mountains to get to the West side of Yellowstone. On the way we saw a bighorn sheep on the side of the road, a black bear under some trees a short distance from the road and bison.

 Black Bear

On this drive there was snow on the ground and in the trees- it was like a winter scene in Sept.

When we got on the other side the weather was a bit warmer and no snow on the ground. Around 4 pm we arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_Hot_Springs

On one end of the area was the terraces of hot springs and boardwalks surrounding them so one can see the different pools of thermal water. At the other  end was the visitor center and buildings that was part of Fort Yellowstone.
Due to the fact we only had one hour here we chose to go to the hot springs and walk around part way and taking photos. In order to really explore the area we needed at least 2-3 hours. In the grassy park between the Hot Springs and visitor center buildings were about 10-12 elk.

They like to hang out here and seem not to be afraid of people. It was easy to take some good photos of them and some of our group did.

Due to a mixup our bus driver did not know the road to W. Yellowstone was closed and after 20 mins of driving found the road closure and he had to drive back to Mammoth and out of the park to the town of W. Yellowstone, MT.

We arrived at our hotel at 7:50pm- almost 2 hours late. Even though it was  a Wed. night and we were the only tour bus in town  all the local restaurants were busy. We went to the Slippery Otter Pub and after a 30 min wait got a table. We had a salad, burgers and fries- food and service very good. Since they did not have dessert we went down one block to the Dairy Queen for some soft serve ice cream.
Really busy tiring day. Tomorrow we go back into Yellowstone Park.