Phyllis & Jerry Visit

We picked Phyllis & Jerry (from Aurora, IL) up at the Bozeman airport on Thurs. and drove back to Mammoth with a stop in Livingston for lunch at Pinkys and then a quick beer at The Old Saloon in Emigrant. Both of these establishments were visited by Anthony Bourdain on his recent visit to Livingston. [For those of you who don’t recognize the name, Tony Bourdain is a chef and the host of No Reservations on the Travel Channel. He is the author of several books on the underside of the food world and is a delightfully irreverent commentator on all things related to food.] As you can see from the pictures, the atmosphere at the Old Saloon is typical old west.

We took a trip to the Lamar Valley to see some animals and we weren’t disappointed. There was a large herd of bison on both sides of the road with a number of calves (red dogs) and lots of young bulls. Three of the young bulls were sparring right next to the road, which was fun to watch. I photographed the two who were the most energetic. The shaggy fur on their backs is the remains of their winter coats. The big bull scratching himself on the side of the rocks has lost all of his winter coat.

Phyllis was delighted to find our dorm surrounded by elk on Friday morning, so we got a group picture outside the dorm with elk in the background. To emphasize our tourist status that day, we were in our Yellowstone shirts.

We headed up to the Mammoth stables so that Phyllis could meet a “real cowboy”. Our friend Steve, who is about 6 feet 5 inches tall (7 feet with hat!) was glad to serve as our token cowpoke. Steve certainly looks the part – even if he is a finance expert from Nebraska.

We then headed for the lower loop of the figure 8 that is the Grand Loop Road around the park. We got to Old Faithful and had lunch on the second-floor porch over the entrance way – with a view of Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin in the background. We saw the requisite Old Faithful eruption, but I’ll spare you another picture of it.

We went to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone area which was beautiful, but very wet. While we were at Artist’s Point (very exposed) there was a lightning strike extremely close in the trees above us. It was a huge flash and explosion with no delay between the two. No one was hurt, but there were lots of screams and a mad dash to the cars.

In between hailstorms, we saw a beautiful bull elk in the field near the road. He hasn’t yet worn the “velvet” off of his impressive rack

Phyllis & Jerry left Saturday with our car for a couple of nights in the Tetons, which they thoroughly enjoyed. When they returned late Monday, we had a small get together with a good many of our friends from the dorm. It was outside on a picnic table because we can’t have wine in the public areas of the dorm, and also it is just prettier outside if you can dodge the thunderstorms. (Note that Lorraine is the photographer again.)

Back on our own after that great visit, Lorraine and I went to the upper terraces at Mammoth for the first time this year and I got some pictures to illustrate that they are still very active – even if you don’t see much hot water at the lower levels.

I’ll leave you with Lorraine’s dramatic picture of our local elk herd against Mt. Everts and a dark blue sky.

Next time, I’ll have pictures from the Cody Stampede (Rodeo).