Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Going through the Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance into Yellowstone National Park was very cool. It felt good to be able to put this park on our list of National Parks we’ve visited on this trip, as it was the very first National Park in the system..:) LAmLo and I immediately started looking for bears. That was our goal, to see some bears! Unfortunately for us however, the bears were being shy, so we had to settle for a wolf, some elk and several bison…oh and plenty of crows! No matter, it was still beautiful and we were having a grand time.

I was amazed to see the devastation that the 1988 forest fire caused there however. So much landspace just burned. The rangers had planted new trees, but they are still babies. This devastation didn’t affect me as much as the longing in Washington and Montana did. Those areas were just decimated and it broke my heart to see the bald mountain tops and to realize that 20 years ago those forests looked quite different. Now instead of healthy pines, there were tons of hardwoods taking up the space that the native pines would grow if they had a chance. Why do we believe this is considered sustainable logging practices? How can we allow this to continue? Very sad….

It was truly awe inspiring to see all the healthy rivers here in the northern U.S.. I am used to very different looking rivers, so I couldn’t get over how lush, clean and roaring these rivers are, even at this time of year. So beautiful. If the snow wasn’t such a huge issue, I’d definitely want to move to somewhere in the northern U.S…well, the snow and much of the politics. But that’s for a whole other blog…;)

The drive to Sheridan from Yellowstone was interesting, to say the least. According to the map, it wasn’t that far…however what we didn’t know what the road went over a major mountain range taking us up to close to 10,000 feet! It took us forever to get to our hotel. We were wishing we could have seen the sites during the day, but as it was night time, we only got to see the shine of the deers’ eyes as our headlights caught them. There were a lot of deer!! At one point it seemed that everywhere we turned our heads we could see one looking back at us or eating alongside the road. I was glad that Jason was driving, although I don’t know if he was too happy about it! We finally made it to the hotel and figured out our next step. We are headed to Rapid City, South Dakota and then on Thursday will hit the road for the long day to Sabetha and Grandpa Joe’s funeral. Then we will go back up to Rapid City on Sunday and resume our journey with our friends up there. The adventures never end for the AmLos!!








































































A loud Vent in Yellowstone


Old Faithful Geyser


We were stopped due to contruction on the East Exit for about an hour. If you see the van in the picture above, with the Plethora of Ribbons and Texas plates.... well that guy was behind us and decided to come tell us about Nam for 20 minutes or so. When I finally made it back into the ManVan, the guy in this video got out of the car with the most horrific atomic wedgie I've ever seen, and they way he was dancin.. I think he liked it. Enjoy - I know I did.