Yellowstone National Park - Day 1

We left the city of West Yellowstone and entered Yellowstone National Park at 7:30 a.m. with plans to see as much North to Norris, Mammoth Hot Springs, West to Roosevelt and Tower Fall, South to Canyon Village, Fishing Bridge, Lake Village, Bridge Bay, West Thumb arriving at Old Faithful.  This loop was a total of 152 miles and took 11 hours.  We make lots of stops along the way and saw lots of wildlife including bison, elk, bald eagle, coyote and a sandhill crane.  We saw numerous geysers, waterfalls, mountains and steam vents.

Specific locations of sites visited can be found in Frommer’s National Park of the American West, pages 413-418.
 
The weather prediction was for cold and rain.  We have learned to not alter our plans based on the weather prediction.  The day ended up being partly sunny and comfortable until around 3:30 p.m. when we had rain.  However, the rain was short lasting and soon the sun came out once again.  It was a very full day.

We checked into our room at the Old Faithful Motor Inn.  We were not sure what to expect based on the description on the web site and our conversation with the reservationist.  We believed our room was going to be in a cabin and not connected to the lodge.  We were quite surprised to learn that our room was in the rustic main lodge.  We grabbed dinner in the lounge and then wandered around the lodge. 

We have plans to hike some of the trails in the Old Faithful area tomorrow.

Pictures can be seen at:  https://picasaweb.google.com/tschick62/201168YellowstoneDay1?authkey=Gv1sRgCPbBtfWr4vnwgAE&feat=directlink

More later . . .