Final trip to Yellowstone, part 2

After doing the bison thing in Hayden Valley, we continued on around Yellowstone Lake, and headed towards Old Faithful.
 We were joined at our picnic lunch near the Continental Divide by this raven.  You know, it’s hard to get a good picture of an all black bird with his black eyes closed shut.  :(  These are pretty crafty birds, and I’m sure he was just waiting to see if we left any scraps behind after our lunch.  No way, Jose!  This is a national park and bear country.  No scraps for you today.  :)
After getting to the summit of Craig Pass (8262’) we stopped at Isa Lake, which was covered with blooming lily pads.
Wouldn’t this have been a great place to see a moose?  No such luck.

As we zoomed past the Old Faithful exit and continued down the road to Madison, I decided to take the Fire Hole Lake Drive one more time.  There are plenty of geysers to view along the way, but none were erupting this time.
I chose, instead, to get some pictures of the colorful outlet from Firehole Lake.  That white stuff is not snow, but mineral deposits left from the hot springs.  If you look closely at the picture on the left, you can see the imprints left by bison as they visit here.

Further on, I took another detour down Fountain Flat Drive.  There were two nice female elk grazing by the roadside.  Wouldn’t you know, that two young Asian fellows decided to walk up to the elk for a picture.  What were they thinking?
The elk, of course, decided to move on and get out of Dodge.  I guess I’ve had enough of people encroaching on the lives of these animals.  :(   STAY IN YOUR CAR!!!

I made a good amount of progress on my getting ready to roll chores today.  Jim, my neighbor, was a great amount of help as we checked out my new air compressor and pumped up the tires of the rig and toad.  The compressor performed perfectly, but what a hassle it was on several of the rig’s tires to even get a reading on the pressure gauge. The two outer tires on my dual tires on the back are so hard to get to the tire stems that I’m not sure I can do that myself.  :(
I don’t think I have the strength or long enough arms to do what he did today.  I also got the outside rug aired and packed up, and put the Blue Ox toad hitch back on the rig, among other things.  Tomorrow I’ll tackle all the inside stuff, do laundry, and unhook everything except the electrical cord.  I should be out of here pretty quick on Monday  morning.  :)

I did receive an email today from one of my readers telling me that I was way off base with thanking Teddy Roosevelt for helping to establish Yellowstone National Park.  Turns out he was only 14 at the time, and certainly wasn't in office yet!  Oops!  Guess I'd better check my details before making a statement like that again.  :(  Thanks Grant, for setting me straight.  :)

I leave you with one last parting shot of Yellowstone…
                                                                   THE END!!!

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy