Yellowstone/Grand Tetons Anniversary Trip 2016 (Day Three)

An early start was in order on Monday as it was the first of two days Darryl had planned for us to spend in Yellowstone. After a quick breakfast at McDonald's we entered Yellowstone Park through the South Entrance.

Bubba poses at a river/waterfall overlook.

We began seeing bison almost immediately. There are a lot of them for sure. We saw them in groups of two or three or in big herds with lots of little calves. You can't really say they are beautiful creatures but there is something special about them. They move slow and easy. They take their time crossing the road and the fact that they have traffic stopped in both directions doesn't faze them a bit. The animals in the park are abundant. We saw black bears, elk, chipmunks, badgers, deer, coyote, yellow belly marmots, and squirrels.  (I'm sure I've forgotten a species.)



Our first big attraction was Old Faithful. Even though the summer season has barely started in Yellowstone, there was a huge crowd waiting. It turns out that Old Faithful is not always faithful. I always thought that the eruptions were predicted ahead of time. It does erupt on a fairly regular basis but occasionally it may go as long as five hours without erupting. We were lucky to arrive within 30 minutes of an eruption and by the time we ate lunch and looked around the Visitor Center, we were able to see it erupt a second time. By the way, I had bison meatloaf for lunch. I liked it although it was much drier than beef.









We made a lot of stops to look at scenery and animals and arrived at our accommodations for the evening at the Canyon Lodge. Even though it was after 3:00, we couldn't check in because they didn't have our rooms ready. We had reservations for the Cowboy Chuck Wagon Dinner and had nearly an hour's drive ahead of us so we went on without the opportunity to change or freshen up any. We rode in covered wagons to an area called Pleasant Valley with a "wrangler" chatting with us and telling us a lot of the history of the area and that was very interesting. Of course, when given the opportunity to sit up front with the driver, Amelia was excited to do so. The menu consisted of grilled steak, baked beans, potato salad, Cole slaw, corn, corn muffins, watermelon and peach crisp. There was cowboy coffee cooked over the open fire. A pretty good singer entertained us with songs that had a western theme. When we introduced ourselves riding out on the wagon, Darryl told the "wrangler" that we were celebrating our 50th anniversary with the Yellowstone trip. Later the cowboy singer announced that we were celebrating a big anniversary and everyone applauded for us. Then he dedicated his next song to us, "Back In the Saddle Again." We've never had a "song" before so I guess now we do. It was a fun evening. We could see bison grazing in the distance as we ate our meal and saw a couple of black bears as we were loading up the wagon to come back.








The rooms at Canyon Lodge were very nice and we slept soundly after such a busy day but they were expensive and did not have tv, wifi, or air conditioning. A lot of places in the park are not air conditioned. It is really nice to sleep with the windows open and the fresh air filling the room. Needless to say, we slept very soundly.