Belgrade to Billings (via Yellowstone!) - Day 4

Today was an awesome touristing adventure!



After coffee, bagels, and a nice visit with our hosts, Shauna and Allan, and their adorable baby granddaughter Athena, we headed south into Yellowstone (and, incidentally, Wyoming)!  As soon as we arrived we stopped and had a pic-a-nic (it was very hard not to think of it as Jellystone, I will admit) and then spent the rest of the day driving through the beautiful park.

We got to see Old Faithful (and some other random geyser) erupt - we had to wait almost an hour for Old Faithful, but fortunately, the Lodge right next to the geyser was happy to sell us a couple of "Old Faithful Ale"s, which helped pass the time. They had a large porch-type patio off the cafeteria-style restaurant where we got the beers, and it came equipped with rocking chairs, of which we happily availed ourselves. It was also lovely and shady for the aforementioned ginger that I'm travelling with - he's being an extremely good sport about all the time we're spending out in the bright sunshine and not grouching very much at all about me nagging him about sunscreen and hats and do-rags etc, but I try to throw him a bone with a shady spot on the patios here and there.

 

Here we are near Old Faithful -
check out the rusty discoloration from the minerally water!

Little Pit of Water - Actually Boiling! (near Old Faithful)

You can't see it very well in the photo, but you could see where this
tiny hot spring is being fed - just above the "tail!"

After seeing Old Faithful erupt (which was extremely cool, despite there having been quite a number of what the young park ranger described as "teasers" - a very apt description, since the geyser spurts up little bits of water for a few seconds several times before subsiding back to just steaming like it does pretty much all the time (that we were there, anyway)! It was hard to be patient, but worth it!

This is the guy who magically made the video work!

On our way back north, we also stopped at the midway geyser basin where we got an awesome view of a geyser crater and some extremely colourful pools...

We also saw the Gibbons Falls (which was very cool - not an extremely tall falls like Multnomah, but very fast and wide and dramatic). There were a great many people fishing, and we thought about Adam's dad, as well as Andrew and Jamie in Vancouver, and how much they would have dug it.

We exited the park by the Roosevelt Arch - the cornerstone was laid by Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 - it says "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People." 

The arch is over the north exit of the park, and feeds directly into Gardiner, MT. Back north to Livingston, where we had a fantastic dinner (pear, walnut and blue cheese salad and a gourmet pizza) at Gil's Goods Bistro (90% of their food is locally sourced, and it was delicious!

 Livingston, MT - the train station across from our restaurant

Then back onto the (blissfully vroom-y at 75mph) I-90 and out to Billings, where we checked into the perfectly adequate but VERY no-frills Western Inn Motel (our hotwire attempt the night before seems to have failed to complete, so we had to blow the budget a little bit on this hotel. Note to self, for next weekend, book further in advance, especially if you're staying near one of the biggest summer tourist attractions in the country!)

After we got settled, we did, in fact, plan out the agenda for the rest of this weekend, and watched some tv (it's 3am local time as I write this, and I'm just starting to tucker out - we must make an effort to adjust to these small time changes, or else we'll be completely hooped when we get further east!)

Now I'm going to attempt to email myself all the photos I've been taking on my phone (since I couldn't find my camera charger until today) so that I can start adding some of the photos to this blog!

Goodnight!