HEADED NORTH

We left Salt Lake City on Sunday and headed north on I-15 into Idaho and then onto Hwy 20.

Since this was Memorial day weekend I had made a reservation at Sheffield RV in Rexburg, ID. Again a Passport park and  you never can tell what type of park it may be. We really weren't sure when we saw the dirt lane,

It was a nice little family own RV park, and we just spent a quiet two days.

On Tuesday we just had to go less then 100 miles to our next campground at Island Park, ID.

This is the view out our front window of Henry's Lake and the Tetons. We are here for four days.

We are 14 miles from West Yellowstone.

On Wednesday we took 150 mile drive around the grand loop.

The Madison River was full and fast. We saw many bisons.

The Gibbon Falls. I even caught the swallow that was flying around in that picture!

Our next stop.

Colorful mud pots, hot springs and geysers. Too hot  and dangerous to walk on the ground. You have to stay on walkway or path.

Up the path and looking down.

We came to a pull off with a lot of cars parked and looking out at this field with binoculars. Do you see anything?

If you look from the edge of the pond straight back to the pine trees there is a white dot.

A bald eagle! We waited awhile to see it fly but finally drove on. There was also an elk carcass in the field. Many people had seen a wolf kill and eat the elk the night before, now it was just bones.

We saw a live elk!

For a lot of the drive we were at 8,000 feet. Roads just opened from snow.

Ice still on the Yellowstone river. We missed seeing Old Faithful by 15 minutes and it started to thunder and rain, so we called it a day and headed home.

Thursday we decide to take a scenic drive on Hwy 87 to see what this road we will be like for the RV when we leave. We then turned on 287 toward West Yellowstone.

We came to the Earthquake Visitor Center. I had been here about 20 years ago when I came west on my sabbatical, but I had forgotten about it.

An 7.6 earthquake occurred  on August 17,1959 and caused this landslide.

The landslide filled in the river, road and valley. Burying 19 campers.

The stone came from the other side.

Earthquake Lake was formed but a spillway had to be quickly made so the dam upstream wouldn't break and cause more destruction.

Looking down at the spillway today. The Madison river will eventually widen it and the lake will disappear, but I don't think in my lifetime.

Looking toward the lake and visitor center.

There were signs all along the road warning of wildlife on the road. We passed two big horn sheep right next to the road.

These bisons were fighting right on the edge of the road and another was standing on the road.The tail up is a sign of anger. A park ranger came along with its lights flashing and siren wailing to get the bison to move off the road.

We spent the rest of the day in the town of West Yellowstone. I had trout for lunch! Then we enjoyed visiting the Museum in the old Union Pacific railroad station. It was full of interesting information about tourism, the 1959 earthquake, and the 1988 fires.

 On Friday we took a bike ride to Henry's Lake State Park.

 We watched beautiful American white pelicans dancing in the sky.

 At first we saw three then a few minutes later there were about 50.