The old West of Virginia City

Virginia city is about 90 miles NW of Yellowstone Park. The town which prospered in 1863 gold rush is preserved as a piece of western history as a long street, with board sidewalks and wooden buildings with rippled glass windows. It's worth a stop.

Yellowstone Wild Things

Everyone drives through the park looking for wildlife. We wonder how unseen animals we cruise by. Can you find the bear? How about the Marmot. I copied and pasted the bear and the marmot to help you to find the animals as they actually appeared (pretty tiny...but I didn't get out of the car when Alan took a pic of the griz).

If you click on the pic it may look larger in a separate field.

I discovered the female buffalo look pretty much like the males.

Dubois to the Tetons

We drove from Denver to Dubois, Wyoming (about 90 miles from the National Parks). We stayed at the KOA beside the Wind River. We heard a siren during the night and awoke the next morning to discover that the siren was a warning that the river was over it's banks.

The next night was spent in the Teton National Park. The mountains never fail to amaze me. They look so big and jagged rising right out of the ground. In June the snow is beautiful.

Elk & more elk

We saw elk everywhere. After photographing a large heard of cow elk we saw 4 bulls together. The first 3 bulls came into the sunny meadow but the oldest bull with the biggest rack waited for some time to see what would happen before he carefully entered the meadow. We thought this was pretty need and upclosed until we ran into some bull elk up close and personal right downtown in Estes Park.

Cowboys

We had a great opportunity to watch horses and riders in action at a mounted shooting competition. The riders ride an obstacle course shooting (special ammunition thats loud and smoky) balloons along the way. The little girls was fearless on her pony. We met Lee Cable, a great friend and nationally known wildlife artist (on the buckskin) who introduced to the Susan K Black seminars in Wyoming.

Este Park/Rocky Mountain National Park

This is the prettiest place we know in the Rockies. The little city of Estes Park is the gateway to the East entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. The city is surrounded by high snow capped mountains and craggy rock formations spring up everywhere. It's very touristy but the main street is lined with beads and trinket stores. Still, the scenery is better, to our way of thinking, than Vail, Aspen or Steamboat Springs.

The weather was blustery and overcast. We stayed in the trusty Toyota at the national park campground. It snowed 8" at the height of the pass that night.

South Rim of the Grand Canyon

We can't say enough about the National Parks. The accommodations are in beautiful, one of a kind locations, inexpensive, well maintained, safe. The lodges have a history of their own. The south rim is easier to access and more crowded but the sunsets and sunrises are a wonder to the eye and mind.