June 13, 2011---Yellowstone National Park.

We took 419 pictures today.

We left home at 7:45 am and we took Bart (the dog) with us because we knew it would be a long 12 hours for him. Our destination for the day is Old Faithful Geyser and anything before and after the geyser. We are heading west from our park to enter the East Entrance to the Yellowstone National Park. The sky is blue with some fluffy white clouds. It is a wonderful 50 degrees.

We entered the East Entrance at 8:15 am and there were 3 bison around the ranger booth. They paid no attention to the cars and people. As we started into the park we saw small patches of snow. The area has had 300% more snow this season than any other time, so we will see more animals at a lower level.

There is ice on Yellowstone Lake. Yellowstone Lake is a large lake with many streams and Yellowstone River feeding into the lake. We also noted the snow was deeper. They even had 300% more rain than other year’s precipitation.

The line is a crack in our windshield. We will fix in Ohio.

We saw our first brown bear.

This is another view of Yellowstone Lake because we were traveling along the shore of the lake. We also saw mountains with bison in the low area.

We stopped at Fishing Bridge and walked through a gift shop, but Walt said he would let me spend some time in the shop some other day. When we stopped in this area we were at 7744 feet.

Butte Lake ---

We passed through an area with fire damage. The burnt trees gave us some unusual pictures.

The Yellowstone Lake is huge so we have more pictures of the lake.

We drove over the continental divide at 8331 feet. When we reached the Old Faithful there were many people and a large visitors center. We were amazed with the crowd. Parking the truck was a very tedious event.

Our next stop was the Upper Geyser Basin. This area I enjoyed very much. It was more interesting than Old Faithful.

After we left the Upper Geyser Basin we drove on the Firehole Canyon Drive and took many pictures of the falls.

When it reached 4 pm we started to see animals like deer, bison elk and bear. When we reached the lookout area of the Lower Falls w took some more pictures.

When we reached Canyon Village we ate supper and then I took over the driving task. It was raining slightly and it was a 90 minute drive back to our home. I caught Walt praying the rosary when I was driving. I hate to think that he was praying because he was fearful of my driving technique. We passed the Yellowstone Lake and Walt took some more pictures of the mountains across the lake and other views we passed.

The end to a very enjoyable day.