The Colors of Yellowstone

Last night was pretty interesting...

About 9pm or so we went from a calm cool night to screaming gales in the span

of about 30 seconds.

The winds howled for a couple of hours and then calmed down.

We are waiting to see it tonight the scenario repeats or not.

We woke up bright and early and enjoyed a relaxing morning topped of with

some Oscars Bacon & Egg Sandwiches.

After walking the Doods we headed off to our first full day with Paul in

my favorite place on this Earth...  Yellowstone National Park.

I've been here at least 30 times and I've often said that I

never get tired of Yellowstone.... Today was no exception.

Everytime that I visit it blows me away!

First we found a nice quiet stream.

As usual...  I had to get my feet wet...

Paul found a warm sunny spot for reflection...

Kate went in search of that perfect shot...

She found this Dragonfly.

After all of this we had worked up a hunger and it was off to the Yellowstone Lodge

for Lunch.  If you've never seen the lodge you can see pictures in our blog last June.

It's a beautiful old historic building.

Paul & I both had some yummy Bison Burgers, and Kate had some sort

of Pear & Proscuito Panini.

After lunch it was outside and a short walk to see Old Faithful...

the site of todays Self Portrait.

I continue to ponder the question:

Does Old Faithful erupt when I'm not there?

We topped off our day with a visit to the Midway Geyser Basin,

and the main event there - The Grand Prismatic Spring.

The source of todays blog title...

I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Tomorrow its back to the park to visit:

The Norris Geyser Basin,

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,

Yellowstone Lower Falls,

The Hayden Valley (named after a friend of mine) in search of wildlife,

Yellowstone Lake,

and the West Thumb Geyser Basin.

See you tomorrow.

Off to Yellowstone

A bit of catching up from the last couple of days...

Paul arrived Friday.

His plane landed at 1530..  we cleared out of our space at the

Dakota Ridge RV Park in Golden, Co at 1100 so we had some time to kill.

First we drove about 30 miles north to Longmont, Co where we were able to

drop the trailer so we didn't have to drag it thru the airport.

Then we drove back down to the Denver Metro and I took Kate on a tour of

all the places that I used to live.

I had to keep reminding myself that it's been 30 years since I moved out of

Colorado since all of my old neighborhoods, homes etc just did not look

anything like the picture that I held in my mind.

The trees were bigger, the houses were older....  and so am I!

We stopped by the Arvada (my old town) Recreation Complex.

It is amazing!

Pools, hot tubs, exercise machines, climbing walls, cafes...

Heres a shot of one of the pools

After a few hours of driving around the old haunts it was off to pick up Paul

at Denver International Airport.

We then drove up to Longmont, hooked up, and drove 3 1/2hrs to Rawlins Wy

where we stayed in a small RV Park next to I80 for the night.

The next morning (Saturday) we drove 5 1/2 hrs to Jackson, Wy where we found

a site in Grand Teton National Park for the night.

We headed into Jackson for lunch and a little sightseeing before arriving back at

camp just in time for cocktail hour.

(you can see poor Lucys head in the screen door waiting for us to let her outside too!)

Some other campers with a Montana stopped over later that night and we spent

several hours chatting as the day dwindled away to night.

Soon it was time to hit the sack.

The temps dropped down to the mid 30's - a welcome respite from the heat that

we'd been experiencing in Colorado recently.

In the middle of the night Lucy Doodle decided that she'd had enough of 

Kate and I and decided that she would rather spend the night with Uncle Paul.

When Paul awoke, he grabbed a hot cup of Joe and headed across the road to

a vacant campsite in the sun to warm up.

Soon we broke camp and headed north thru Grand Teton NP

Our route took us thru Yellowstone, entering thru the South Entrance and exiting from

the West Entrance.

From there another 15 miles west on US 20 took us to our new home for the next

4 nights - Lake Henry State Park in Idaho.

This is a picture of the campground

This is a picture of our site.

We have great internet and this will make a great base for showing Paul the

wonders of Yellowstone.

Since picking him up Friday we now been in Colorado, Wyoming, 

Montana, and Idaho.

Now on to the main event!