Follow Your Dreams

Some dear friends once gave me a sky blue wall plaque with a rainbow that read "Follow Your Dreams". The drive in Lamar Valley tonight reminded me of this plaque:

Wes' Visit

I have a visitor from home!!! Wes came to spend a week in Yellowstone and it was great to see an old friend! I had to work the first 3 days of his trip so he went sight-seeing along the upper loop during the day while I worked.


Tuesday, we hiked Elephant Back and had a great view of Yellowstone Lake. Afterwards, we had lunch at Fishing Bridge General Store and drove back to Mammoth stopping along the way to take pics of flowers, wildlife and scenery.

Once we were back at Mammoth, we decided to head down to Boiling River to relax. Boiling River is where scalding hot water from natural hot springs flows into the cool Gardner River. It takes some time to find a spot that isn't too cool, and most importantly, not too hot.

Later that evening, Rebekah joined us for dinner at Rosie's in Gardiner.

Wednesday morningwe headed down to the Old Faithful area. We walked the Upper Geyser Basin and visited the Old Faithful Inn. We visited some other geyser basins and did a short hike to get an aerial view of Grand Prismatic Hot Spring. This night, we camped at Madison Campground and Wes went fishing for a while.

Thursday morning, bright and early, we headed for Grand Teton National Park. Along the way, we spotted this coyote:

Seeing the Tetons never gets old...

At Moose Junction in GTNP, we spotted 2 bull moose!! Here's one of them:

On the drive back to Lake Lodge, we stopped at Lewis Lake so Wes could do some more fishing. It was a beautiful sunset...

Friday morning, after breakfast at Fishing Bridge General Store, we went on a hike back to Riddle Lake.

It was a nice 2 mile stroll back to the lake through the forest. Fishing was not good this day because it was much too windy. But the view was nice:

We did some exploring of other areas of the park that Wes had not yet visited. The evening was spent enjoying the lake and geese:

August Hikes

Cathleen, Elizabeth and I hiked Sepulchre. I believe this trail had the prettiest wildflowers of the summer:

Another great hike in August was Mt. Washburn, one of my all-time favorites in the park. This hike provided great views, a good workout, and good fellowship with Cathleen and Del.

Bozeman, MT

The nearest Wal-Mart is 90 miles away in Bozeman, MT. Home of the Montana State Bobcats, Bozeman is nice little college town. It's always a treat when you can leave the "wilderness" of the park and visit Bozeman.

On this particular day, Linda, a co-worker, and I made the big trip to town. I've mentioned before that I love Montana. Here is another reason: It is August and the high a mid-day is 78 degrees:

Scenes from downtown Bozeman:

Not sure how frequently this happens, but there were boxes of chalk along the sidewalks. The sidewalks were beautifully decorated:

The Garage - a great outdoor, open-air lunch spot:

One of the shops had this sign just outside their door: