Our Homeplace: Western Trip 2020, Sept. 24

September 24, 2020

A day in Upper Yellowstone.

Today was another "early-start" day with the sun not even up yet. The drive back to Yellowstone wasn't that long in terms of how many miles we usually do in a day, but the speed limit was 45 mph most of the way there. Since our campground rules are "no generators until 8:00", we left very quietly, drove about an hour, and then pulled over in this beautiful spot to cook and eat breakfast. We couldn't get a clear picture of him, but there was also a big buck elk down in those trees left of the water. It was a beautiful drive to Upper Yellowstone in Wyoming.

After another hour of driving, we stopped at Pumice Point pullout to stretch our legs.

We had the place all to ourselves. Just left of where I'm walking in the photo below, the road has been washed away by a storm and drops off to the water below. The large steel reinforcements can be seen jutting out from the asphalt of the road above. No wonder the sign says no parking on that side of the road!

A large herd of Bison down in the valley.

Some had wandered close enough to the road to get a close-up shot.

Today was a day mainly for seeing all the waterfalls in Upper Yellowstone--which involved a lot of hiking. I told Paul I was very thankful for good hiking boots! I'm not sure if we saw them all, but we saw the biggest ones in what they call "The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone". All of Yellowstone has 290 waterfalls. The tallest waterfall near a road is the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River at 308 feet, which is the one in our picture below.

Mud volcanoes.

This was our lunch spot today. We found a good turnout right beside the river on the left side of the highway. We put the side slide out and cranked up the generator to prepare our lunch. I was at the stove when I looked out and saw that a car had stopped in the road right beside us. I said to Paul, "Why would he stop right in the road with all this traffic?!" Paul looked out the front windows and said, "I see why?"

This big fellow was walking right down the middle of the highway! Traffic was stopped all around us, and there was a park ranger vehicle following along behind him with his flashers on. How's that for a lunch date? With a buffalo! We couldn't have timed it any better.

Nest stop, Lewis Falls.

The wind was blowing so hard on the way back that Yellowstone Lake looked a lot

like the ocean with all the whitecaps.

Driving back to our campground we passed all this beauty. The Tetons were barely visible this afternoon due to all the smoke still coming in from the West Coast fires.