Tuesday, May 15, 2012...

Greetings from Gardiner, Montana!! We left Rock Sprimgs, Wyoming this morning and headed directly north. Wyoming has a LOT of wide open spaces. There are miles and miles where you can see nothing but sagebrush and quite a few antelope. Once in a while you see a herd of cattle but there is no house or ranch in sight so you wonder who they belong to. After driving about 100 miles, we began to see the snow covered mountains off in the distance. Most of the land from Rock Springs to Jackson was at an altitude of approximately 6500 feet.

We passed through Jackson and soon after that was the entrance to Grand Teton National Park. The park is beautiful with plenty of scenery. The mountains there look like pictures of the Swiss Alps.

As soon as we exited Grand Teton, we entered Yellowstone National Park. This park is HUGE!! It took us about 3 or 4 hours to get from the south entrance to the north entrance. We wanted to get to our lodging in Gardiner, MT which is just outside the north entrance. At one point, there were cars stopped on both sides of the road and the rangers were directing traffic. It turned out there was a black bear out in the field which we saw and a grizzly bear which we couldn't see. People were getting out of their cars to get pics and some setting up tripods. The next slowdown was due to three HUGE buffalo right in the middle of the road. We got a couple pictures but they didn't come out very well.

Going through the park, we climbed to a higher elevation. The lakes at that level were still frozen and there was quite a bit of snow along the roads. At least one main road in the park is still closed due to snow. Here in Gardiner, the snow is gone and spring flowers like lilacs are blooming. At the lower altitudes in the park itself, there isn't much snow either.

Tomorrow we are going to Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar Valley, known as the "American Serengeti" where supposedly you might see anything from wolves to grizzly bears. Jim is hoping for some great wildlife photos.