Yellowstone is an amazing place to visit. So much to see. And I didn’t even get to half of it.
Category Archives: road trip
We continued north, driving all the way through Yellowstone National Park and ended up at a Forest Service campground just a few miles away from the park boundary. It was a nice place to stay with a string of beaver ponds along a creek and lovely fall colors. There were trails through the sagebrush outside the campground that were perfect for dog walks. Our friends from western Montana, including their dogs, joined us for a few days. The girls and I stayed there for ten days. After so many days of trying to find a good place to camp, it was such a relief to be in a nice place with clean air. The night sky was clear and I could see and photograph the comet again.
The girls and I set off for northern Utah a few weeks ago. We planned to explore the Mirror Lake area, starting from Evanston Wyoming. When we got to Evanston, I learned of a wildfire south of Mirror Lake that had the entire area where we were going to camp and hike, under a level two evacuation notice. We could have driven through but could not stop or camp. Darn. The USFS suggested we try a place about 35 miles east of there. It was not lovely and soon smoke filled the air. We spent one entire afternoon reading books (me) and napping (dogs) inside the camper. It was poisonous outside. After two nights, we started driving north. We spent one night along the Snake River and then continued north towards the Grand Tetons. In Jackson, people were wearing masks to protect them from the smoke. There were fires burning to the east and to the west of the park. We continued north, never seeing the famous mountains. We finally ended up boondocked high on a ridge on USFS land. At that elevation, we were above the worst of the smoke and I was able to see and photograph the famous comet whose name I don’t know.
The girls and I spent a few days exploring the basalt covered landscape of eastern Oregon last week. The weather was ok, sometimes too windy and rarely was the light good for photos, except at night. We walked three to six miles everyday and the dogs got to swim at least twice each day. Sky is doing really well on her new arthritis med and nothing seems to slow Willow down. She is obsessed with the water wherever we go. We were a little early for wildflowers. I love the way that so many plants grow right out of the basalt rocks. There were bighorn sheep on the canyon walls and Chukars and Ring-necked Pheasants called relentlessly from the hillsides. I did see a couple groups of Yellow-rumped Warblers decked out in their finest spring plumage!
As you might expect at a place like Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, there were birds. Lots of kinds of birds. Most of them were not close enough for photos but I did manage to see nearly eighty species. My favorite birdwatching was right in my campsite. I saw four kinds of warblers in the trees and shrubs over the creek and Cinnamon Teals drifted by pretty continuously. Willow particularly enjoyed watching the teals. Is it because she is the same color as the male? There was a Great-horned Owl nest in the campground. It was in a particularly large and dense juniper tree and the owls were nearly impossible to photograph. Many people stopped to look at them.
My Everyday Photos 