Yellowstone National Park, WY

After an uneventful morning at the Rosebud Battlefield State Park, which is not too far from the Little Bighorn National Battlefield in Montana, I drove across the beautiful state of Montana alone the Yellowstone River. It took almost all day to drive from one end of Montana to the other, and to get to Gardiner, Montana which is right on the Wyoming northen and Montana southern border. Right after crossing the border from Gardiner, Montana into Wyoming you’re in Yellowstone National Park, so staying at Gardiner after a long day of driving seemed to be a good place to stop.

It turns out that Gardiner is situated at the northern entrance to Yellowstone National Park. It’s a really cool small town right on the banks of the Yellowstone River with the majestic Gallatin Mountain Range in the not so off distance.

The next morning, I got a late start to my first time to Yellowstone Park. The park is massive. One could spend days at the park and still not see it all. Not surprising to me, there people everywhere. Thousands of them. The good thing was that it was still early in the season. They say that next month, is when it really gets crowded.

Being by myself, on my first day, I decided to do the tourist thing by just going to all the major tourist spots like Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower Falls, Canyon Falls, the Norris Geyser Basin , and everything in between.

There was wildlife of all kinds everywhere. I saw bighorn sheep on a side of a canyon wall. They were too far away for me to photograph. I saw Elk up close for the first time. They were everywhere. I coyote cubs playing just outside of their den right off the road, but again they were too far me to take a good picture.

It doesn’t sound like I didn’t do much on my first day at Yellowstone, but after a lot of walking, climbing around on rocks, and taking pictures, I was really beat. But not too busy for a Friday night visits to all the bars and saloons in downtown Gardiner which was only walking distance from where I was staying.

The next morning I started out with an early start, for my intent was to drive through Yellowstone National Park to the Grand Teton National Park just south of Yellow Park. Along the way, I stopped off at Old Faithful and Lake Yellowstone.

It took almost all day driving through Yellowstone Park, the Grand Teton, and Jackson Hole before ending up at the city of Jackson, WY.