Woke up to a sunny day. Not sure what to make of that.

 

It felt down right balmy in Missoula. No breakfast included with our room so we headed out to go find a local place to eat. This time we decided to go left and cross over the river to see what was there. There were a few cool building between us and there.

 

The duct tape seat caught my eye on this bike.

 

 

 

 

A very calm morning.

 

I even took a self portrait.

 

I was a bit worried that it made me look fat though.

We found a little place called The Hob. Looked good so we decided to check it out. Was one one girl running here ass off taking orders and serving. Again we noticed a variety of people in the place and the only cell phone we saw was one 3 young guys were looking at a map on.

 

Apparently Dave doesn’t understand the concept of a wide angle lens.

Breakfast was excellent and when I went across the street to get a photo of the place I “found” the Italian place we had been looking for the night before. Found it right next door to where we were. We had a pretty good laugh about that.

 

We walked back on the other side of the bridge and notice a Farmer’s Market setting up so we stopped to check it out.

 

Found a few more buildings to shoot before we left town.

 

I really liked the look of the sunlight hitting this building.

 

 

 

I could have probably spend a couple of days exploring downtown Missoula but we had to move on.

Our next stop was the Miracle of America Museum in Polson, Montana.

We saw this from the highway and just had to stop.

 

If you ever thought of yourself as a packrat, this is the place for you to feel pretty good about yourself. There are more items stuffed in to 10 square feet than an entire Costco it seemed.

 

It is hard to warp your head around how much stuff is packed into this building.

 

 

I took these for all those with Harley’s who make fun of scooters. Looks like a scooter to me and it says Harley Davidson right on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we headed outside.

 

With those wings it could probably fly.

 

 

 

This station wagon I took for my friend Steve Parkin because he so likes them.

 

 

The colours in the metal on this were impressive.

 

 

 

I loved the “Prison Made” license plate.

 

 

The paint is either faded or this is from San Fransicso.

 

 

 

All the modern communication gear in this radio truck

 

 

 

Dave checks out a Vietnam vintage Huey while a Korean era Bell 47 sits in the background.

 

 

These little Sikorsky S-55’s are so ugly they are cute.

 

 

 

Then we found a modern Hair salon. I’ll bet Lynda would love to have all this stuff when she was hairdressing.

Found a cute little drug store as well.

 

The coolest thing I found was a merry go round. Since you can’t find these “dangerous” things anymore I had to ride it.

 

And this is the panorama I took while on it.

 

I know it’s not very exciting but it’s all I had to work with at the time.

And with that we left Polson and headed up to Columbia Falls for the night. Our hotel was on the east side of town and we decided to walk into town for super. A mile is a long way to walk when it’s along a highway.

Tomorrow we’ll head home through Glacier National Park.

 

Woke up to another frosty morning. The sun was trying to shine but it was fighting a losing battle with the clouds. I walked down to the river to see if that would help me warm up.

 

Saw this little beauty on my way and just had to get a photo. Can’t see the young guy in the funky hat driving it though.

 

It was a nice calm morning. Cold, but calm.

Since it felt colder than it had the previous two mornings I wandered over to the office to see if there was a thermometer.

 

-5C!?! No wonder I was so damn cold. Dave thought we should buy some ice to bring home to Lynda but we couldn’t decide what size to buy. The truck had another heavier ice on it too.

We decided we’d go out the NE side of the park and check out Cody, Wyoming and come back in the East entrance.

The sun came out for a bit and we happened across the little fellow just taking it easy.

I like the enviromental portrait better than the close up, but I thought I’d share both.

The sun didn’t stay out for long so we hit the road again and didn’t find anything that inspired us till we got to Cooke City and I found this little fixer upper investment property.

I was thinking it was a good idea until something scrambled out from under the pile of rubble when I went to look in the window. I decided I’d pass on it.

The road we were on is the Beartooth Highway and it is twisty and has some elevation gain. It gets really twisty and do you ever climb going over the Beartooth Pass.

I couldn’t tell how windy it was until we stopped and I could barely get my truck door open. Trying to stand steady to take photos proved nearly impossible.

We got to Cody and looked for a lunch spot. We decided to try Zapata’s. Mexican food. Really, really good. I could go there more than once a week for sure.

Not far out of Cody is the Buffalo Bill Dam. We missed being able to do a dam tour by 2 days. So, we took a few snaps of the outside.

It was pretty windy here too but nothing like up at the pass and at least the sun was shining.

This was the most exciting thing we saw on the way back.

 

I thought it was exciting. I liked the contrast.

There is an abundance of burnt timber in Yellowstone and the stark contrast always catches my eye.

As we approached the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone we came across a herd of buffalo just sauntering down the road.

Didn’t even have to take off my seat belt to get these. I really liked the shadows in the first one and the dead trees in the background.

We decided to stop at the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone again. The sun was shining intermittently this time so the light and colour were totally different from our first visit.

While I prefer the colours I got on the rainy day, I really liked the contrast of the dark clouds in the frame this visit. The sun was nice and warm and the wind was so cold that I found myself slowly turning around to keep warm.

Our last stop of the day was the Artists Paintpots. The walk in was in the shelter of the trees but it was fairly open and windy when we got there. I felt another cold night coming on.

 

I would not be wrong.

October seemed to dawn dryer than the way September ended. Seemed that way because I realized the rain had turned to ice on the tent. Brrrr.

So what to do in this kind of weather? Why go to the campground office and book 2 more nights of course.

The tree at the office still had ice on it too.

We weren’t really hungry yet so we decided to head down to the penultimate tourist attraction – Old Faithful and then decide about food from there.

As we headed down the road towards Old Faithful we saw a bunch of cars pulled over but since we were driving right into the sun I couldn’t see anything. Suddenly Dave says ‘bear’. I pulled over and we grabbed our cameras and jumped out. I got to see a sow grizzly and her cub saunter into the woods as I was crossing the road to get a better view. Those were the first grizzlies I’d ever seen in the wild and that was pretty cool, but sadly I never got a picture.

As we headed south we came across this fellow hunting. I took quite a few shots of him as he parallelled the road for  while. This one is my best shot of him I believe.

 

He caught 2 mice or voles or whatever. I don’t really know as he kept his head down while he ate them. I tried a bunch of shots while he was hunting and thought this one was pretty cool even though it wasn’t quite what I was going for. Being too lazy to set up the tripod will do that sometimes.

 

I dragged the shutter as much as I could.

While we were watching the coyote I realized that there were quite a few pairs of cranes in the distance on this plain. Unfortunately they were a long way away and even though I know they were there it’s hard to tell in the photos and I had a 400 mm lens on at the time.

As we drove along the same plain we noticed some bison grazing with a bunch of thermal activity in the back ground.

 

As we got closer I noticed the snow on the hills in the background. No wonder our rain had turned to ice.

I tired a panorama of the area to show how vast that plain is.

 

Started out for Old Faithful again but hadn’t gotten very far when we came to Fountain Paint Pot Nature Trail. Here there was snow on the ground and the contrast looked pretty neat so we stopped to check it out. The couple walking off the boardwalk were part of a tour and I don’t know what language the tour guide was yelling at them in, but I recognized it as yelling at them.

After spending about half an hour here we again started out for Old Faithful and lo and behold, we made it there. We pulled into the parking lot and wandered along for a couple of minutes before we came to a boardwalk with a bunch of people on it. Dave and I picked a spot and waited to see the famous geyser do it’s thing.

 

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We stood around for about 10 minutes when it suddenly started to do it’s thing.

It’s a pretty impressive combination of sight and sound for a couple of minutes while Old Faithful erupts. But then it’s done and the crowds wander off. Dave and I went into the information center to look around. We stayed almost long enough for it to erupt again but we left before that happened.

We headed north again to go look for lunch and as we got near our campground it was snowing like crazy so we turned around and took a drive along Firehole Canyon Road. Was a nice twisty little road.

Firehole Falls was the nicest place to shoot along the road. There were a few other spots that held promise but in the light we had that day they just didn’t pan out.

We decided to go back to check out Firehole Lake Drive before we’d go find some food so was headed south again. It’s only about a 3 mile loop road but it is a one way road. Being cold there was a lot of steam in the air, especially when we got to the big lake.

Since it was 1 o’clockish we decided we’d better go get something to eat. Along the way I thought this was a nice quiet scene and we made a quick stop.

We headed into Gardiner for a late lunch/early supper since the road was finally re-opened. Lunch, like all the meals we’d had, was pretty good.

 

It was getting late in the day when we got to the Artists Paintpots. Oops, this is the Norris Geyser Basin. It’s a short walk in and it’s another unique area.

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It was getting dark when we left and as we drove there was a spectacular sunset. Unfortunately, by the time I found a spot to park this is all I could get. The colour was pretty much gone by this time.

 

This was the first night it wasn’t raining at bed time and it was fairly chilly.

Cold and wet was the day that greeted me for my 49th birthday. The rain had stopped over night but everything was very wet at our campsite. Dave and I had planned to make breakfast every morning and eat where ever we happened to be for lunch and or supper. That plan went out the window in a hurry. So back to Three Bear it was. Our waitress from the previous night had told us she would be in for the breakfast rush. We were disappointed not to see her as she was a very good waitress and pretty funny as well. When we asked about her we were told that all the temporary foreign workers had to go home that day as their visas would soon expire. When I had asked her about her accent she told us she was from Estonia. I thought that was pretty cool as my wife was working with a girl from Estonia back home. The restaurant had lost 5 workers in one day. The service was still good, just not the same.

We decided to go check out Grand Teton National Park. It was an overcast day with not very much to see along the way but we did find something cool to check out.

Grand Teton Vodka Distillery in Driggs, Idaho looked interesting so we stopped to get a tour (and a couple of samples). Although we were outside the normal tour hours we got to check it out. Pretty neat process they have there. Since it was raining there really wasn’t much too see when we rolled into Jackson, Wyoming and I got wet enough filling up the truck to not want to wander around.

We drove north towards the Tetons and the weather did improve as the rain stopped but the clouds hung very, very low.

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So I’m not totally convinced the Grand Tetons exist, but I did enjoy the fall colours.

We headed back to Yellowstone and drove quite a long ways before we saw anything that seemed worth getting out to take pictures of. Unfortunately the photo I saw and the one I got by the time I could stop and get the shot had changed a lot.

Our next and what turned out to be final photo stop for the day was the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone. The rain was an intermittent problem, but it did make for some nice even light which made getting photos of the canyon a lot easier than when the sun is out.

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The colours in the rock were stunning. There was also a spot on the left side of the falls that looked to be emerald green and try as I might I just couldn’t seem to capture it the way I saw it. We got tired of getting wet so we headed into West Yellowstone for supper. And once again, it was pouring rain when we got back to the tent. I was starting to make a friend of the gas heater in the men’s washroom by this point. It was so nice to stand in the heat for a few minutes, then bundle up to tuck into all my layers of sleeping bags and blankets. I’d still wake up cold, but it was good to start out warm.

When I decided to go away for my annual birthday road trip I mentioned it to my friend Dave and he asked me if he could come along. He had come to Quebec with me 3 years before and since we had both survived that I figured, why not? Since I had been planning to camp in my truck it meant a slight change in plans. I bought a tent so we’d actually have room to sleep. The plan was to leave early and drive to Yellowstone National Park, find a camping spot and spend 4 or 5 days there. It was a beautiful sunny day as we left around 6 am. As we approached Lethbridge the battery light on my truck came on and I made for the nearest garage. I have to say that I’ve never been convinced that Canadian Tire could do a good job on auto servicing despite the name. But, even though it was Sunday and my choices were very limited, I was very impressed with the staff and the fairly quick repair time replacing my alternator. Sadly though, the delay, coupled with the emergency pit stop I needed to deal with my Fatburger lunch put us about 4 hours behind schedule. As we approached Bozeman, Montana it was getting pretty dark and the highway was lined with deer and antelope so a nice warm hotel room was in the cards as neither of us fancied setting up a new tent in the dark.

After our complimentary breakfast (which was pretty good) we started heading for Yellowstone. We didn’t get very far when we spotted an bunch of old building near the train tracks so we stopped to take some pictures. 

I’m not sure what all used to be there. It’s not all abandoned as there were people coming and going out one of the doors opposite the tracks, but I really liked the look of the building and especially all the glass. We spent almost an hour there before we hit the road again. It wasn’t very far to Livingston where we turned south and followed the Yellowstone River towards the park. We saw a big herd of Elk just hanging out in a field.

 They were not at all concerned that we were stopped taking their photo.

Next stop was Gardiner where we checked out the information centre and looked at the Roosevelt Arch. 

So with that we had arrived at the north entrance to Yellowstone. Heading south we were soon in Wyoming and then at the Mammoth Hot Springs. When we got there the rangers were out keeping, well, trying to keep the tourist out of the way of the big bull elk chasing some cows around. It was pretty entertaining watching people trying to get out of the way as he ran around.

   

Since the road to the Madison campground was closed and we had to take the Grand Loop Road scenic route there we headed out before there was any elk porn to shoot. Normally it isn’t all that far from Mammoth to Madison but with the road closed for another 2 days it was quite a drive to go a few miles. Since I’d never been to the park I certainly didn’t mind at all.

 I got this fellow along the road and Dave had a couple on his side of the road that were even closer. We only made one more stop along the way which I think was Beryl Spring.

 It was pretty impressive how many hot springs and steam vents that we saw in just our first day. Yellowstone was an impressive place so far.

We finally pulled into the Madison Campground and there was space for us so we booked for 2 nights to see if we liked it as we could always stay longer if we wanted.

 Our home away from home for what turned out to be 4 nights. 4 very cold and wet nights at that.  It wasn’t raining but it had been and by the time we got set up it was time to eat. Since it was chilly and wet we decided to go into West Yellowstone for supper.

 Along the way I spied this fellow fly fishing and really liked the river with the burnt timber in the background so we stopped. I don’t think he knew we were there as he never turned far enough to see us. It was getting dark so we headed into town to find some food.  We found the Three Bear Restaurant along main street and decided to check it out. Was a good decision as we returned there for more meals then we’d planned on.

When we were leaving the restaurant it was dark and raining so there wasn’t much to do but head back to camp and go to bed. We sat in the truck for about 10 minutes waiting for the downpour to slacken, but it wasn’t happening so we ran into the tent and tried to keep warm and dry. I slept pretty good, but it was a cold night.