Voyages of Sea Turtle

Voyages of Sea Turtle

Monday, September 28, 2015

Day 17 & 18

Saturday, 09/26/15
West Yellowstone
Grizzly RV Park

   We met Seth and Lisa at Timberline Cafe for breakfast. We all pigged out except for Lisa, then headed off.  We took in Firehold Lake Drive and saw Great Fountain Geyser. Then went to Lone Star Geyser and saw Kepler Cascades. It was really 4 falls in quick sucession. We went to White Cone Geyser. Crossed the continenal divide twice. One of those places a small lake flowed both to the  Atlantic and the Pacific

We went to West Thumb which is part of Yellowstone Lake. We took in some thermal features there. We explored the Lake Hotel which was elegant. There was a violinist playing chamber music in the sun/sitting room. We also explored the Lake Lodge. It was more rustic, logs and all, with 2 big stone fireplaces and rockers on the front porch facing the lake. It was massive but managed to seem cozy too. We saw another big bull elk but this time 30 feet away. He was bugling. We ended the day eating at the Buffalo Bar again. I got buffalo balls, Lee ate buffalo too. 

Tap below for 2 pics





Sunday, 09/27/15
West Yellowstone
Grizzly RV Park

Seth and Lisa came over for breakfast then headed to Fairy Falls trail for some hiking.  When they got to the falls they found a beautiful 200 ft cascade. Grand Prismatic Springs was also part of their hiking excursion.  It looks like rainbow colors thus the name. 
It is also a thermal feature. 

We all planned to reunite around 5 or 5:30 and head to Mammoth Hot Springs to do a ranger lead observation of the moon eclipse. 
Lee and I decided around 12 to ride to the NE entrance of the park which traverses the Lamar Valley. The Lamar Valley is supposed to have an active bear and wolf population. We did not see either of those, but did see a few white tail deer and loads of buffalo. When we looked at the map we realized to return to W. Yellowstone and then go to Mammoth would be a 90 miles trip but to go from Lamar Valley directly to Mammoth was only 40 miles. So we asked Seth and Lisa to just meet us at the eclipse program. 

They arrived just as the rangers were assembling people to hike to the viewing point. We had already been there 1 1/2 hours. Nobody had eaten dinner so we ate sandwiches while we slowly watched the shadow creep over the moon.  By 8:30 it was getting chilly and the moon had fully darkened so we headed back to West Yellowstone.  Tomorrow is the day Seth and Lisa head back to Oregon.  So they will come by in the morning for a final visit before they head to Billings MT to turn in their rental car and catch their plane. We will leave day after tomorrow. 

Tap below for 2 pics







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