yellowstone diary...and beyond

The previous blog, I mentioned Mammoth Springs, but didn't include any picture.  It was so beautiful, with such different colors and plants, still mostly pole pines, but some neat flowers. One of the highlights of the trip was eating at the Mammoth Spring Dining room.  We actually had a choice of what to eat, someone brought it to the table, and probably most impressively, we had real plates and cups with handles.  At the EDR we had plastic trays and only plastic glasses--(is that an oxymoron??)  I had Elk Sliders.  MMmmm.  Of course it cost real money, but it was well worth it. My suite mate Brenda is moving to another room.  One of our mutual friends, Christine, is having issues with crappy roommates and Brenda isn't happy with her current roommate, although she isn't crappy.  So Brenda moving down the hall makes sense.  Since I'm very happy with my roomie, and she with me, I'll have to see how many suite mates I can go through.  There are still new folks comi

Just regular bison photos that I can't get to the bottom of this blog.  More further down with the story that makes sense. I'm sitting in a McDonalds in West Yellowstone, Montana, because they have Wifi.  Yeah.  There is still no Wifi at the park.  it was suppose to be fixed over the weekend, but it's not.  Probably when I get back, it will be, but it is nice to get away from  Old Faithful and all the tourist, not to mention the log pine trees.  If I never see another pine tree, it will be ok because that is all I see here. Rose, my roomie, and I went to Mammoth Springs on Friday.  What a great day.  I was anxious to see some Red Dogs, the nickname for baby bison.  We did manage to see them in stages.  At one point, we were tied up in traffic for over 90 minutes because of a Bison jam.  We were told about 300 crossed the road.  That wasn't bad enough, so then a few of them decided to take a nap in the middle of the road.  The Park Rangers

Yesterday (Tuesday) was the day after the full moon and it actually worked out to see Old Faithful erupt under it.  I've wanted to see that while on this adventure.  Now to see a red dog bison. The full moon adventure started out with 5 of us (Rose, Christine Julie, Jasmine and myself) heading out about 10:30, about the time the moon was scheduled to rise with the geyser suppose to go off about 11.  Unfortunately, there was a cloud bank that hid it while Old Faithful was erupting, and the moon was just not very bright at that time.  We did eventually see the moon rise and it was fun being out in the chilly night with no one else around, having a generally good time.  Rose brought a good chocolate bar, Christine always has salty snacks.  We all went back to the residence, not really satisfied with the venture.  I went to my room, and started reading a book that I got caught up in.  About 1 AM, I peeked out my window and saw the moon high in the sky and quite bright.  I estimated w

This is Ronald.  I mention him a few times, but never a photo so I'm adding his smiling face to this blog on 8/23/19 Good news.  I now have Friday and Saturday as my days off which match up with my roomie, Rose, who has a car and likes to go places.  We don't have specific plans, but trying to see Red Dogs, the nickname for baby bison, is high on the list.  She isn't an avid hiker, but neither am I, so it could be a match made in heaven.  One or two miles, three on the outside is about right for both of us.  And I think there's about a million miles of trails in the whole park, not to mention Grand Teton National Park, a mere 50 miles away. We still have only one register at work, which makes for really long lines.  For the most part, folk are ok with standing in line for 20 minutes or more.  Since I have tomorrow off, (Wednesday) I don't really care.  The IT guy swears he'll be there tomorrow.  I told my manager, Chris, that I'm going to hang around j

Well, it was a really busy day at work, mostly because one of the two registers was not working.  It really slowed down service, many folks asking why we wouldn't open it up.  I felt like saying, "what a great idea!! I wish I had thought of it."  There was a steady line, many times out the door, from 11 AM until about 4:30.  It slowed to a trickle, but I was off at 5 PM, so it didn't affect me much. I went to a pow-wow on Saturday in Cody, Wyoming.  It was really cool.  The costumes were great and the dancing and performing interesting.  There were 15-10 craft stands with all handmade items.  I bought myself a neat bracelet, and a few other babbles.  There was Indian Fried Bread, but the line was always too long and I was happy with the pulled pork sandwich.  Pictures were difficult because of the pop-up tents that were allowed on the parade grounds edges.  I also couldn't edit out the stuff I didn't want. . I also took some pictures on the road through Wy