Canyon Village, Wyoming, United States
On his visit last year when we took a trip to Oregon and
northern California, Rodrigo expressed interest in seeing Mount Rushmore, so on
his much shorter visit this October I planned out a nine day trip to western
South Dakota and some sights in Wyoming en route. Although I’ve been to South
Dakota numerous times, the last time I spent time around the Badlands and Black
Hills was more than 11 years ago. And there are always some sights that I
missed on previous visits that I can take in now, so some things are new to me.
Yellowstone National Park is on the list of almost every
visitor I get in Montana. There are some exceptions, mostly those who have
already been there and hold no desire to return. And it’s no different for
Rodrigo. We passed through the southeastern side of the park last year on our
way back from Utah with stops at West Thumb Geyser Basin, Old Faithful, and
Grand Prismatic Spring. This year I
figured we’d start our journey by passing through the northern and eastern
parts of the park on the way to Cody. I’ve
posted many pictures from and described thoroughly Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris
Geyser Basin, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and Mud Volcano Basin in
previous blog entries over the years, so there isn’t much new to say. To me
Yellowstone has virtually become my backyard, but to people seeing the sights
for the first time, the park always inspires awe and wonder.
Yellowstone is known for its wildlife, but sometimes it can
be hard to spot. You are almost guaranteed to see some bison depending on which
route you drive through the park, but other animals can be hit or miss. It can
seem like the elk are having a convention but other times you might see non at
all. In this case the few we saw were actually outside the park just north of
Gardiner. We did see a few bison and a raven but not much else.
2025-05-22