THERE SHE BLOWS!!!

Sept.21
We left Kalispell-heading toward Yellowstone and new scenery and adventures!
We travelled thru the community of Swan Lake-and Seeley lake-both just beautiful. There are some really smart-and lucky people who decided to purchase property and build homes in this area-we will be back to take a closer look at this pretty area.
We arrived at the KOA campground in West Yellowstone. We are about 6 miles away from the West entrance of yellowstone Nat. Park. The campground is pretty deserted-they close Oct.1st-so we pretty much have the run of the place-Ginger loves that!

Sept, 22
We take off for the park and anxious to see Old Faithful. We can take Ginger today, as we will not be going on any "back country" trails. The park is pretty-but we soon see how much fire damage Yellowstone endured. There are downed trees everywhere-and sparse areas everywhere. It is not a lush forest as is Glacier Park.
There is a lot of strange sights in the park-geysers, mudpots, hot springs,fumaroles-streams that are steaming-water that is arctic blue-and icy and hot all at the same time.
We walk across a bridge and get a sulphur facial-strange!
finally we get to Old Faithful-the area is crowded-even in the late season and on a Tuesday! there are benches all around the geyser-and they are all full. We all are waiting for the "big one" to happen-and in about 40 minutes or so, we were rewarded for our patience. We got some good pics of the eruption-so please look at flickr!
After the big show-we went to the visitor center and got panini sandwiches to take on the road with us. The whole center-including the restaurant-is staffed with seniors-and they are great and appear to really like the jobs they are doing. they live together in a big dormitory in the park. So, we took our lunch and Mike found a beautiful picnic spot along the river-Ginger was given a biscuit when we entered the park by the ranger-so she was ready for a snack too! we sat and ate, and watched a couple fly fish on the river. They were cute-the husband was teaching his wife-one of them had a walker close by just in case-it was a sweet sight to watch them-and we hoped they would catch something while we were there-but no. the park has a lot of fishing restrictions-and most of the area is fly fishing only.
We had a great day of sightseeing, and were ready to get back to our camp and put on our fireplace and warm-up!
So, here we were-sitting on the sofa,just relaxing-waiting for our soup to heat-and for Jeopardy to start(we have to keep our minds working even on the journey)-I look out the back window,and see something quite large-and quite black-moving just outside the fence of the park. I hope it is bear-or Bison,but it is instead a herd of black angus cows-a lot of them!! I gotta go look-and Mike follows. Here are all of these cows-they live nextdoor on a huge ranch-they are just out for their evening meal-and we get to watch. They are so big-and they moo and eat and move on up the road. I know Mike wants to jump the fence to go play with them-and I am so glad when he has a change of heart. then, we look up, and here come about 20 horses just across the pasture from the cows-they are just running free-and what a beautiful sight. I did not have the camera with me-but it was a memorable sight-like watching Bonanza or something! anyway, it was a great day, and we had a nice little bonus to end it.Oh, and we did not see Boo-Boo bear, or Yogi or Cindy bear-but we did see several elk,the bison and a wolf-