greybull to yellowstone to bozeman. miles 2567 to 2867ish.

ok, so clearly this one is going to be a long post. get ready.

the drive from greybull to yellowstone continued along scenic hwy 16 through cody, wy. clearly, i had to stop in cody for some coffee (which i proceeded to spill all over myself while walking down the main street), a couple wyoming souveniers, and some seriously gorgeous views. for such a, well, square and rather unknown state - at least to me - wyoming has some of the most varied scenery i've seen. plains to mountains to desert and tumbleweeds back to mountains and scrub and rivers and lakes and grasslands and geisers and desert again. whoa.

also, i had a very special moment when i realized that cody, wy, is named after buffalo bill. cody. yeah. all together now: oh, erica. also, cody apparently has a rodeo pretty much every night of the summer. how cool is that?

back on the road, i was surprised to stop almost immediately out of the city - who could pass up a viewing of the buffalo bill cody dam?

it's about another hour from cody to the east entrance of yellowstone... lots of farms. and crazy rocky outcroppings. like chimney rock!

see, it really does look like a chimney.

just before lunchtime, i made it to yellowstone! the roads in the park basically follow a central circle in the middle of the park with an eastern, southern, western, and two northern entrances. i entered on the eastern side, and followed the central circle counter clockwise - first along the lake, then across to old faithful, then back up and around the main circle on a hunt for a campsite. but that will come later.

a quick note on all of these pictures: there are so, so many pictures i COULD have taken - probably many of them better than those i did - but i was fairly limited by the proximity of the views to turnouts where i could stop the car and the traffic behind me (and whether i could actually turn). but here's at least an idea.

part one: the lake route

clearly, this route is particularly appealing as it consists mainly of two of my favorite scenic views: lakes, and mountains. and lakes and mountains.

and a buffalo! or bison. well, one of the two.

interesting fact about erica:
i really, really love wild flowers. especially wild flowers that grow in unexpected places.


then we crossed the continental divide!


and then TRAGEDY hit:

i was intrigued by these yellow lilypad-like flowers on the pond right at the top of the continental divide. i walked to the pond for further study (and pictures) and was VICIOUSLY attacked by a yellowstone yellowjacket. or, well, some type of very angry bee. and it stung me. under my arm. my very first bee sting! it was red and stinging and ouch. so when i got to the clinic at old faithful, i stopped in to make sure there wasn't anything special i should do - the nurse looked at me, laughed, and told me that if one hypothetically was stung by a bee, as long as they're breathing, they're fine. but she couldn't give advice without admiting the patient to the clinic. by that point, the swelling had gone down, and i was breathing, so i went to wait to explore geiserland.

apparently, bees are also attracted to these pretty flowers.

pretty waterfall! also, for those of you like my father who do not like to look over the edge into ravines... i included a shot of the ravine floor, too :)
(haha, dad - remember when you took me to niagara falls? prob'ly not nearly as funny to you as it was (and is) to me.)

part two: geiserland

also known as, how many people can we fit on this boardwalk to watch old faithful? answer: zillions. but rather than sitting with the zillions of other on-lookers, i decided to walk around one of the smaller of the boardwalks in geiserland.

remember what i said about wildflowers in unexpected places? how cool is this?

and, what you've all been waiting for... old faithful.

who faithfully did go off when predicted.

part three: hunt for camping. geiserland to mammoth to gardiner.

so i decided that since i'd only seen half the park so far - and i wasn't quite ready to leave yet - i'd just camp in the park overnight, get up early to drive around the rest of the loop, and i could be on my way to montana by afternoon. in theory, this was a great plan. in reality, by 6:30 all of the campsites in the entire park were booked. so that left me two options: go to gardiner and get a motel room, or camp as planned in the national forestry campground in gardiner. since i was already mentally prepared to sleep in my car, and i didn't want to deal with hunting a motel room in very full motels, i chose option two.

but first, i had to drive from old faithful all the way to the northern entrance at mammoth and gardiner. along the way, i saw more geisers, some elk, deer, a grizzly(!), pretty almost-sunsets, and lots of campers who'd stolen my campsite :p

elks!


there is a grizzly in there... he's a bit far away, but i was kind of ok with that.


and some pretty sunsets :)

oh! and as i left the park, i also almost hit a baby elk. thankfully (for maddie, as well as the baby elk), i did not hit it. but i was also flustered enough and there was traffic behind me so i did not get to stop and take a picture. it was cute, though.