Yellowstone 2011-Part One
Our journey started in San Francisco and after collecting our cases we boarded the AirTrain to the Rental Car Centre to pick up our hire car and start making our way up to Crater Lake in Oregon.
Our first stop was at Santa Rosa in California where we spent two nights. I had read that Charles Schulz the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ cartoon, had a museum there. He did a great deal for the area including providing a baseball pitch for children who didn’t have any facilities. He liked ice hockey and playing tennis and the museum has its own ice rink. We were amused by many of the cartoon strips displayed, especially a large wall made up of the daily cartoon strips.
The following day we drove to Crater Lake in Oregon. The weather was distinctly cooler and as we drove nearer to the lake area we were surprised to see what we thought was snow. Indeed it was and it got heavier as we approached. We arrived at the Lodge and checked in.
The area has one of the highest snow falls during the winter; usually they have about 44 feet but this year it was much higher at 57 feet. There is an island in the middle of the lake but unfortunately we weren’t able to see it except at the top of the Lodge, so reception handed out spy glasses which showed a summer scene. This was very much tongue in cheek!
Before leaving the area we had a look at the lake with the snow piled high everywhere. It was simply beautiful.
We then went to Boise in Idaho for one night. We hadn’t made any advance arrangements for the next two nights but decided to stop in Idaho Falls and explored the area from this town. There was some lovely countryside around and it was quite sparsely populated making me wonder how people managed to arrive at this rather out of the way place. Here you can find metal deposits including gold.
We stayed outside Yellowstone National Park for 3 nights in West Yellowstone in Montana and drove in to the park daily. It is a huge park. We stopped frequently to take photographs of the dramatic countryside, the water falls, the volcanic fumaroles and the bison down by the river on the first day. We didn’t see any wolves, although on later days we saw elk as well as bison wandering around the woods and also holding up the traffic by ambling down the middle of the highway.
The next day we entered the park at the same entrance. This time we found ourselves in a queue, which meant we could look at the local area in great detail. We were aware of at least one helicopter flying around, which did seem unusual. When we got to the end of the queue there were Park Rangers on horses and lots of bison rushing along, many of them had young. They are big powerful animals and they were being moved from one area of the park to another. Normally in the Spring they move further into the park themselves, but because the winter weather in North America had been severe and prolonged, they were becoming a nuisance and a possible danger to the towns outside the park. It still was very cold and this was the beginning of June.
We spent one night in the park itself, this part of the park is in Wyoming. My tip is to book early as the accommodation gets very booked up and can be pricey as a result.
The Lodge where we stayed was near the best known geyser Old Faithfully. We were advised when it was due to become active about every 15-30 minutes. It was absolutely fascinating.
Read on in the next instalment of my Yellowstone Park Journal…