It snowed the first three evenings after we got to the campground, which is good, since it will help with the lack of snow pack that we have this year. We hope that it continues to snow every night until the end of September, as it might reduce the number of people that are planning on coming through the campground this year.

Sunday the 26th, we went on the company sponsored tour of the lower loop of the park. It is a tour available to guests, at a price, called the Circle of Fire. It goes around the loop stopping at all the thermal features, with the bus driver explaining the science and or history behind the different features. The company provides the tour so we can familiarize ourselves with the features of the park, to better explain them to the guests when they ask about them.

The first half of the tour was uneventful, other than walking the boardwalk around the Grand Prismatic Spring in a blowing snow storm. After touring the lower portion of the loop around the Old Faithful area, it goes around the west side of the loop up to Norris Geyser Basin, then takes a sharp right to head east to the Canyon Village area. We had lunch in the visitors center when we got there.

After lunch we headed south towards the Yellowstone Lake area, having to pass through a locked gate that prevents guests from driving in the area until the park service decides to open the gates - usually based on snow levels and the number of grizzly bears in the area. On the way south, the only thing we noticed was the low level of the lake and rivers.

 

On the way back north (we couldn't continue south because a bridge is being replaced along the road) one of our group saw an animal out in the field to the left. As it turned out, it was a grizzly bear. Well, not 'a' grizzly bear, but FOUR grizzly bears. A mother and her three cubs.

A few miles further, in the Hayden Valley, we saw a wolf across the Yellowstone River, walking along the bank.

This is just about the same location we had seen a wolf when we came to Yellowstone as tourists, nine or ten years ago.

After getting back to the Norris Geyser Basin and heading south towards the campground that afternoon, we saw another sow grizzly and one cub just north of the Gibbon Falls area. It appears that she is the same grizzly that was visiting our campground late last season. We all hope that she stays in the area she is currently and doesn't come back to the campground. Only bad things could come of it if she returns. At the very least she would be trapped and moved somewhere much farther away. At worst she would be put down as a hazard to humans.

It turns out, the photos we took of her last year in the campground, are now being used in one of the visitor centers, in a bear safety video.

After a few days of practicing our check-in process, we opened for business on May 1st. We checked people into more sites than any other opening day over the last five years. With the nice weather we've been having, there's little to discourage them from coming.

At some point during our bus tour on the 27th, Penny lost her ID pouch, where she kept her Xanterra ID card and her drivers license. Fortunately, she didn't keep anything else - like credit cards - in it. Apparently no one found it and turned it in and I went back to look around all the places she might have lost it, but I couldn't find it. That all forced us to take a quick trip to South Dakota to get her a replacement license.

After work on Monday (noon) the 4th, we headed east and got to Spearfish, South Dakota about 10 p.m. We stayed in a hotel in Spearfish and headed to Rapid City the next morning. South Dakota requires that you show proof of having stayed in the state, at least one night, during the last 12 months, to get a duplicate license. We hadn't been in SD since March of 2014. Otherwise, we might have been able to get her license online. We would have gotten her license in Spearfish, but that office is only open on Wednesdays, hence the trip to Rapid City. It took less than 30 minutes to get her license replaced and we were headed back to Yellowstone. After a 12 hour drive we arrived safely in the campground. Penny was able to get some nice pictures of the scenery during our trip, to help make it more worthwhile.

Yellowstone Lake is still frozen, but is thawing out.

There are some interesting rock formations east of the park.

 

 

And some interesting buildings 

 

Just east of Gillette, Wyoming, I-90 cuts through the middle of a coal mine.

 

One of the places we find very interesting is the Ten Sleep area of central Wyoming.

 

 

So far, we're having a great time. Hope to see some of you here during the summer.

To our families and friends -

 

Happy Mother's Day