We are in the last week of our stay at Yellowstone Park and we have mixed feelings about leaving. We are very excited about going to California to see sons Evan and David; Daughter-in-law, Brooke; future Daughter-in-law, Linda; and of course, Grandson, Jake. However, we are sad to leave wonderful new friends here at Mammoth Hot Springs, our very own elk herd, the fantastic air in the morning, the cool nights, and the wonderful vistas we have come to love. Our (older) bodies are not unhappy about leaving jobs that keep us on our feet for most of 8 hours at a time, and the heavy lifting, mopping and cleaning up for Doug.
Again, I’ll post a conglomeration of pictures from our travels and here at Mammoth. Some of these are older, but are favorites of mine. Some (me, in uniform) are just ones that Lorraine says I must show the world.
First there is another rodeo picture that I didn’t get posted earlier. Look at how far in the air that horse is. Think about what the rider will feel like when the horse hits the ground again!
We saw the coyote (and he obviously saw us) on the way home from Roosevelt one evening. He was crossing the road, but thought better of it after stopping and looking at us.
I’m showing you Justin, the young cowboy who was our wagon driver on our cookout at Roosevelt. He was entertaining us with his harmonica. It was fun to meet these nice, personable, competent and funny young people.
We were almost in the middle of the herd of bison crossing the road. This herd included bison almost as big as camels, as well as some cute young ones – called “Red Dogs” because that is what they look like when they are babies. It is amazing to compare them as babies to what they grow into.
The picture of the old town with wagons is Old Town Cody, WY. They had moved a number of log cabins and stores from their original location to display them here. They are all authentic, and some have great historical interest – such as the cabin that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used as a hideout for their “Hole-in-the-wall” gang.
Our elk herd is shown taking their ease outside our dorm window. Ours is the last window you can see in the picture on the bottom floor. We could have reached out and touched the elk under us. We have many pictures of them out the window, but they are all taken through glass. I liked the picture of the three elk sitting in a line next to the dorm. I call them Manny, Moe, and Jack. My portrait of a young inquisitive elk is taken out the door of the dorm just beyond our room. I’m a little closer than I should be to him, but I love the picture.
Next are five pictures from the terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs. These are from the upper terraces, which are extremely active, as you can see from all the steam. There is a lot of nearly boiling water running all over the area and depositing the terraces little by little. If you look around the Mammoth area, you see that most of it consists of older terraces that have since dried up. They change from year to year, and sometimes overnight. The deposits cover everything that is there, as you can see from the trees being swallowed up. The patterns in the hot water are very interesting and sometimes very beautiful.
I have to include a “vista” picture: This one is of a thunderstorm building over the mountains behind the Madison Valley. I wish pictures could convey the beauty of this amazing country.
The next six pictures are from Virginia City, MT, which was one of many gold-mining towns and was the first territorial capitol of the Montana Territory. There are interesting examples of the architecture of the period. The fancy façade on the Dance and Stuart building contrasts with the mud-roofed building in the next picture. The night picture shows our hotel, the Fairweather Inn, which is named for the first man to discover gold in Alder Gulch, right down the street to the left. Our room was on the second floor, the window to the left in the picture. We enjoyed sitting on the balcony with a glass of wine. [Well…, actually we drank the wine out of day-glow orange plastic cups, which was as close as we could come to wine glasses in the Inn.] We did, however, have a wonderful meal in the restaurant across the street – with excellent wine in nice glasses.
You can see the five graves on “Boot Hill” of some of the desperados that plagued the town (and others like it) until a group of “Vigilantes” decided to put an end to the lawlessness. They hanged the five men in Jan., 1864 in the building in the next picture – called the Hanging Building – which was under construction at the time. It is one of Montana’s oldest standing original buildings. The Vigilantes hung something like 20 men in 20 days and really did bring something like law and order to the area. It is really amazing to learn that the stories in the old westerns that I grew up watching came pretty close to what really happened. It turns out the leader of the bad guys in Virginia City was the sheriff, who was alerting the gang when the gold shipments were going out by stagecoach. He was hung in a neighboring town a short while later.
The corset shows why women of the period would occasionally faint. The proportions are normal – except for the waist!
I liked Lorraine’s picture of the horses that were pulling a stagecoach for rides through the town.
Lorraine insisted that I include a picture of me in uniform. I like it all but the hat.
Yesterday we went to the Boiling River – where it enters the Gardiner River. In the “olden days” the employees would always go down and build a small dam around the area where the water from the hot springs (on the right of the picture) enters the icy cold Gardiner River – making a wonderful “hot tub” for our enjoyment. Now there is a trail there and a more-or-less permanent dam, and the place gets crowded with tourists, but it is still a fun place. It only opened for use a couple of weeks ago because the river has been so high. You can see the “bathing beauty” Lorraine modeling the lovely (used) rafting boots we bought for $5.00 a pair to avoid cutting our feet on the rocks.
I’ve included a picture of our new good friends Don and Carol Searight from near Waco, TX. We were enjoying a really good diner at an Italian restaurant in Gardiner.
Lorraine really wanted to get a group picture of our dorm residents, all of whom have become friends. She managed to marshal 33 of them on the steps of the Post Office (right after a big thunderstorm). The picture turned out well.
I’m sorry for the length of this posting. I hope it makes sense and that the pictures are in the proper order, but I’m not as expert at this as I would like. This may be our last posting from the park, but I’m sure I’ll put a farewell message up at least – along with a few pictures of grandson Jake – before I sign off. We leave the park on Saturday (Aug. 2) and head for California. We look forward to seeing a couple of friends along the way.
Bye for now.
