Jardine, Old Faithful Inn & a bear!

By Sunday the storms were gone and the day was beautiful.  On Sunday morning, we decided to take a drive up the mountain behind us which led to a National Forest campground and the town of Jardine.

As we traveled up the mountain, we could barely see Gardiner below,

 

but we could now also see Mammoth Hot Springs in the park.  Can you see it?

 

We drove by this little shack that was sitting over a pond with a dock going to it.  We couldn't figure out why this little bitty shack would have been built over a pond.  I suggested maybe for ice-fishing in the winter but the shack had a lot of holes in it.

 

Like everywhere else we had been, the scenery was beautiful.

 

You would think the wind was blowing very hard the way this tree looks but there was just a slight breeze.

 

Here is another very distant view of Mammoth Hot Springs.

 

I saw this old shack built into the hillside below.

 

The closer we got to Jardine, we could hear a creek nearby.

 

We also saw this little deer on the hillside.

Jardine was a small mining town at one time.

The mine is no longer in operation but there is a water treatment facility there that removes the arsenic from the water which had been caused by the mining operations.

 

As we headed back down the mountain, we took a side road toward some cliffs that had that same columnar-looking rock like we had seen in Yellowstone and like Devil's Tower.

 

 

This was a piece on the ground that had broken off.

 

There was this old animal skull at the base of the cliff. 

 

As we headed back down, we could see the Roosevelt Arch entrance to Yellowstone...

 

...and our camper.  Can you see it?

 

How about now?

 

By the way did you find Mammoth Hot Springs in the picture above?  If not, I have it circled in the picture below.

 

After we got back to the motorhome, I sat outside and enjoyed the nice weather for a while.  I may have even napped once or twice.  :)

 

Later that afternoon, we drove to Old Faithful Inn to meet our new friends Tony and Barb Pritchard at the Old Faithful Inn.  On the way, we saw our first "herd" of buffalo...

 

...and some baby buffalo with the herd.

 

We arrived at Old Faithful Inn around 5:00 pm and had a very nice dinner with Tony and Barb.  After dinner, we walked around the Inn.  Old Faithful Inn was built in 1903-04 and is a National Historic Landmark.  The inn was built with lodgepole pines which you can see in this huge multi-level lobby.

 

The big fireplace stretched all the way up to the top of the lobby.

 

We sat outside on the deck and visited for another couple of hours and got to see Old Faithful erupt two more times.

It's always fun meeting new friends and getting to hear their stories and sharing some of ours.  Tony and Barb, thanks for a wonderful dinner and we look forward to camping with you again sometime!

 

We said our good-byes to Tony and Barb and headed back home.  We had just past the turnoff to the West Entrance of Yellowstone and noticed a few cars stopped on the other side of the road.  We slowed the car down to see what they were looking at...

 

...and it was a bear!

 

We had a perfect viewing spot because there was no one in front of us and the bear was only about 15 or 20 yards from the car...almost a little too close.
 

We think it was a grizzly but are not sure because some black bears can be brown or cinnamon in color.  If anyone can tell for sure from the pictures or movie, please let us know.

You can see how powerful he (or she) is by how he rips apart the log in the movie we're guessing to get at some ants or termites to eat.  It was amazing to watch him but I sure am glad we were in the car.

Within just a few minutes, cars were stopping and parking everywhere along the road and people were getting out of their cars to watch him.  CRAZY PEOPLE!  At this point, the bear was still close at about 25 - 30 yards from our car and they were walking down the side of the road next to our car to try to see him. 

We headed on down the road watching out for anymore wildlife on the sides of the road or on the road.  We didn't see any more bears but we did see some more elk.

 

Another good day at Yellowstone! 

 

A day to do nothing

After two full days of driving around Yellowstone, we decided to not go anywhere on Saturday.  However, it looked like it was going to be another nice day but just a little overcast.

 

I started getting fidgety and talked Chuck into walking down the hill to downtown Gardiner.  When we walked across the bridge going over the Yellowstone River, we could see people rafting below.

 

We walked over to the Yellowstone Association building to look around and see if we could find out if there had been any wolf sightings.  They had this book where people could log in where different wildlife had been seen and there was an entry where someone had seen a wolf in Lamar Valley early in the morning the day before.  We were planning on taking a day trip across the Beartooth Highway while we were here and we had to go through Lamar Valley to get there so we hoped that we might get to see a wolf then.

We went into a few shops in Gardiner just to look around and then headed back to the motorhome because it was starting look like a storm was brewing.

 

After we got back to the camper, we could hear and see some more people laughing and screaming as they were going down the river on rafts.

 

Like I said previously, the views from the back of the motorhome were awesome...

 

...but the distance between the campers was a little tight.

 

How do you like our spacious side yard?  :)

 

The storm clouds were continuing to build up...

...so we headed back inside before the rain started and just rested and did a little reading and watching TV the rest of the day.

 

Grand Tetons & Yellowstone Lake

After leaving Old Faithful, we continued south and stopped at the first picnic area we came to.  Hope Yogi Bear doesn't come out of the woods and try to steal our picnic!

 

I looked at the map and realized we were probably only about 40 miles from the Grand Tetons.  Rather than spend another day driving all the way through Yellowstone to see the Tetons, we decided to go ahead and drive there today.  Also, it stays daylight so long out here.  It doesn't even start to get "dusky-dark" until around 10:00 pm so we thought we would have plenty of time.

As we drove toward the south entrance of Yellowstone, we went by Lewis Lake on the west...

and Lewis Falls.

 

As we started to descend toward the south entrance, we began to see the Grand Tetons in the distance.

If they were this beautiful far away, we knew they would be beautiful closer up.

 

And they did not disappoint us.

Of course, an hour was not enough time to see all there was to see of the Grand Tetons; but it was better than 5 minutes at the Grand Canyon.  :)  Hopefully, we can return to see them again some time maybe in the fall when the aspen leaves will be golden, the wildlife plentiful, and the summer crowds lessened.

Chuck had been doing all the driving so I offered to drive awhile.  We headed back north through the south entrance of Yellowstone.  There was a big canyon on the east side (passenger side) of the car that was close to the edge of the road.  Chuck got to experience the "thrill" of riding on the edge of the canyon from the passenger seat.  He suggested I keep my eyes on the road.  :)

When we turned back on to the lower loop at the West Thumb Information Center, we noticed cars pulled off on the side of the road.  This time it was for a bull elk.  This was the first bull elk we had seen in Yellowstone.

 

We followed the coastline of Yellowstone Lake all the way up to Lake Village.

At 136 square miles of surface area (or 2,221,766 acres), Yellowstone Lake is the largest freshwater lake above 7,000 feet in North America.  As a comparison, Percy Priest Lake in Nashville is only 14,200 acres.  Lake Lanier near Atlanta is 37,000 acres.  The lake is a beautiful clear blue.

We stopped at a general store in Lake Village for some ice cream.  The temperature was pleasantly cooler here near Lake Yellowstone.

 

After ice cream, Chuck was ready to drive again so we continued up the east side of the lower loop which took us through Hayden Valley where I had read was a good place to see wildlife including bears.

It was beautiful; but the only wildlife we saw were more buffalo.

When we reached Canyon Village, we headed back west but cutting across on the common road between the upper and lower loops  over to the west side of the upper loop to avoid the construction that we encountered yesterday on the east side of the upper loop. 

Driving north on this road we had traveled south on yesterday and this morning gave us a different perspective...

...like not realizing we were actually driving on a bridge hung on the side of a cliff.

There were these huge boulders that we had seen previously near Mammoth Hot Springs.  Can't you imagine these big rocks spewing out of Yellowstone Volcano 640,000 years ago?

We also took this very short drive on the other side of the road through this boulder field.

We also had a different perspective of the valley near Mammoth Hot Springs...

...but we didn't see any mountain sheep today.

 

Today's day trip took almost 12 hours and we drove 237 miles.  I don't know about you but I'm pooped!

View Yellowstone Lower Loop & Grand Tetons in a larger map