Sunday-July 30-Day 40-National Parks

By 8 AM this morning we were up, dressed, and ready for church!

Technology is such a blessing at times like this, enabling us to stay connected to our home congregation through livestream. 

We were challenged through Dave's message to daily die to self.

We have seen these coffee drive-thrus   throughout the north. And this morning when we hit the road we decided to get an iced mocha latte! (There was even room enough for us to go through the drive-thru!)  I do something like this so seldom that I didn't really know what to expect! Oh my!  What a delicious treat! We tried hard not to think  of all the empty calories! And we enjoyed them to the fullest! as we drove toward Yellowstone National Park.

We passed lots of  typical Montana summer scenes.

In those brown grass fields we saw a lot of antelope. 

There were many ranch gates like this one, some  much more elaborate.

 "Sun West Ranch"

We think this is an osprey nest.

This is Earthquake Lake, near the town of West Yellowstone, Montana. On the night of August 17, 1959, there was a 7.3 earthquake which caused a landslide of hundreds of tons of rocks, burying  28  people who were camping at Rock Creek Campground along the Madison River, which ran in canyon, at the bottom of where this lake now is.  The landslide instantly stopped the flow of the river, creating what is now called Quake Lake. The still standing dead trees cause a somber remembrance. How tragic! 

Quake Lake measures 6 miles long and up to a third of a mile wide, and is 180 feet deep. Below the surface at  the bottom of the canyon is the highway bed as well as many completely submerged trees, and some cabins.

When we arrived at West Yellowstone, the west gate to the park, there was a Visitor's Center, with an IMAX.  We saw parts of the park we never would see with our naked eye. It was really neat!

The next 5 pics are some I took during the show.

The one disappointment with our whole trip was that we did not see more animals in the wild. But we got to see lots on this presentation of National Park Adventure, featuring Yellowstone.  We also really enjoyed the fly-overs, when it felt like we were in a helicopter seeing the park from above. 

After browsing the gift shop for a bit, and getting a $.50 ice cream cone, we headed to the park.

This was the first visit for all of us.  Our plan was to just drive through, from the west entrance to the south entrance, enjoying that section of the park. 

Yellowstone has a unique beauty all it's own.

Storm clouds !

Lots of small geysers as we headed to Old
Faithful.

In this area the trees were dead....then a distinct line of evergreens.  It did not appear to be from a fire here. It is beautiful how God created nature to take care of itself, in ever-changing cycles.

Water running over the rocks caused colorful formations.

When we arrived at Old Faithful, there were again tons of people and cars!  But we thank the Lord for providing a large-enough spot for parallel parking, right near the Visitor's Center!  As we followed the crowds, another sperctator told us  that Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt in 10 minutes!

Many expectant spectators....I'd say several thousand......sat on tiered benches all around a semi-circle.

And sure enough, right on schedule, the steam and water pushed up from inside the earth! This was not it's highest.....I missed the peak. 😔  Old Faithful erupts about every 60-110 minutes, spewing 3700 to 8400 gallons of boiling water and reaches heights of 106-184 feet.

This baby geyser is next to Old Faithful and erupts once a day, we were told. I don't remember it's name.
The overhead storm was threatening so we hurried back to the RV, and just as we got the wheelchair away and all three of us were inside, it started to rain! We again crossed the Continental Divide, as we drove south in western Wyoming.

The downed dead trees gave the grassy forest floor an interesting look. Pic-Up Sticks, anyone??

We passed Lewis Lake, and then came to Lewis Falls, up-river from the road. These rocks were also interesting. Solid, but with little walking paths.

This is a good picture to show how the fireweed  springs up after a forest fire, bringing color and beauty to the devastation.

Our first glimpse of the Tetons.

Yellowston and Grand Teton National Parks are very close together. The land between them was purchased by the Rockefeller family years ago and donated to the parks, to connect them.
For years I have been waiting to see these mountains, as I recall B & B guests who sang their praises! I had a little book with places written down that I wanted to visit.  Maybe today I would call it my bucket list!😊 The Sawtooth Mountains in the Tetons were on that list!

Sorry this does not look that wonderful, but it was!  You just had to be there! It was a bit hazy and the skies had clouded over  but it did give a unique perspective to the pics. I'd love to see these mountains against a back-drop of bright blue skies!

At the south end of the Tetons we drove through Jackson Hole. A cute old-western style town, and very "touristy". Again, lots of people and lots of cars. At two different places there is  an antler archway. This picture  below is the best I could do....If it hadn't been so crowded we could have stopped to get a better pic.

Steve was on his phone, trying to find a place to park our buggy to sleep for the night. Several places were full. Jackson Hole Campground had space, for $125.00  a night!! So we decided to drive out of town and away from the touristy spot.

We drove south on Route 89 on the very western edge of Wyoming, to Alpine, and again got the last spot at Wapiti Village Campground.

We had a bag of apples that we were not getting eaten, so I made them into fried apples. We enjoyed a supper of beanburgers and cheesey cauliflower. 

Today we put only 250 miles on the odometer. The night was dark and the stars were bright when we turned out the lights to sleep. What a blessing to have dark nights again to sleep !  No more trying to block out the midnight sun with window treatments and eye masks!