Sunday 1st June 2014

We found a nice campground in the back 40 of Wyoming.  The views were great.  Open expanses of grassland.  They raise a lot of horses out here.  There were a couple of evening thunderstorms. This picture from the campground shows the lovely cloud formations.

The flowers are blooming.  I have never seen yellow Indian Paintbrush before.  I think this batch just could not decide what color to be.

The Balsam Root was all over the hillsides.

On our hike to some waterfalls I needed a little rest.

After my nap I was ready to take more flower photos. These Pasque flowers are so delicate.

   

Now it was Deans turn for a rest.

Dean picked a nice bag full of wild desert sage.  It smells like regular sage but on steroids.  You can’t eat it.

However it sure makes a nice foot batch for weary hiker feet.

We had planned on camping at the Grand Teton National Park but there was a little too much of the white stuff for our comfort level.

So we moved up the road to Yellowstone National Park.  It was further north but we camped at a lower elevation. I think we must have seen a hundred geysers, bubbling mud pots and of course Old Faithful put on it’s regular show.

  

The Grand Prismatic Spring was one of our favorites.  The rising steam was all shades of the rainbow.

Dean chopped enough wood so we could cook the dinner and watch some caveman TV that evening.

There were plenty of Elk strolling about. This mom and baby were grazing at the campground.

We passed this one on a trail.  We got the message and went around him.  The velvet on his antlers looked so fuzzy.

Nature in it’s full circle.

There are some large herds of buffalo around the park.  We were stuck in a long line of traffic as a group just meandered down the road. I guess they could not read the 25mph road signs.  We also were lucky enough to spot a wolf scarfing down something he had caught. Did not manage to get a picture of that.

On our way out of the park we saw an elk scaring a brown bear enough to climb a tree.  We figured she had a baby close by.  We stayed around to watch through the binoculars for a while but it looked like Mexican standoff so had to leave them to it.  Goodbye Yellowstone.  Onwards to Montana.