September 7, 2013.. We went to the beautiful Lamar Valley section of the park today. We spent the whole day doing that. It was much different than the area we have been staying in since we got here (which is Canyon). We stopped and had a late breakfast along the way at Dunraven Pass. Dunraven Pass is an 8,860 foot pass. The road crosses on the east side of the park. We had a very enjoyable day and did laundry when we got back to Canyon campground before returning to our campsite about 9pm. They have a very nice laundry facility here.

Tomorrow we move to another campground. This is the last day of operation for this campground this season. They close tomorrow. There are 12 campgrounds in Yellowstone National Park. We plan to go north in the park to Mammoth Hot Springs for a couple of days. I don't know if we will have phone service and Internet there so if you don't see a new posting tomorrow night, you will know I did not have Internet service.

Below is a photo made in Lamar Valley

Some buffalo create a small traffic jam

Tower Falls

I could not resist adding more photos of Lower Falls

September 6, 2013.. We went to what is called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone today. This was going to be the prime photo opportunity of the visit here. The weather was not cooperating. It was overcast part of the time, and later in the day as we visited other viewpoints, it began to rain. The rain did not dampen our spirits but it did hinder photo taking. We hiked down to the brink of one of the falls which is only 3/8 of a mile but was a 600 foot elevation change. Soon after we got there, it began to rain. It was a steep and hurried hike back out but I got a few photos. The main waterfall that I wanted to photograph was Lower Falls. Below are some photos I made today but I may post more later.
The weather is cool at night. As I write this, it is 48 degrees with a  low of 32 predicted in a couple of nights. I might wish I had some long handles or something with me.

Here are different views of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Lower Falls

The view below is looking down the canyon from the brink of the falls. It is truly an awesome creation.

The view looking down at the falls from the brink.

Something else to add to the beauty there.

September 5, 2013.. Today we visited the areas not for from the Canyon campground where we are staying right now. The farthest we drove today was 10 miles away to the Mud volcano and Sulfur Caldron. We plan to use each campground we stay in here as a hub to visit various areas of the park. We enjoyed the day with the temperature about 72. Here are some photos from today.

 Photo below is along Yellowstone River. My sister told me about a beautiful location where she had made some photos. I hope I found the place she was talking about. 

September 4, 2013.. Today, we spent most of our free time at the Buffalo Bill Cody Center of the West Museum. We spent several hours there and still did not cover all of it. It has sections on the Plains Indians, Natural History of Yellowstone, Buffalo Bill, Firearms, and Western art. It had a huge collection of firearms. There were about 1500 firearms in one section and 1200 in another section. We never did get to the section that contained 1200. We ran out of time. I mentioned in a previous post that we saw signs a few days ago saying the Deadwood stage trail had been there. Today in the museum, we saw a Deadwood stagecoach. 

After we finished at the museum, we topped off with supplies at Walmart. We plan to be in Yellowstone for 11 days so we need to make sure we have enough supplies with us. After we got in the park, the drive was magnificent. We could smell the fragrant smell of pines as we drove along. We had not had that happen before. We arrived at Canyon campground after dark. We plan to be at this campground 4 nights before moving to another campground. 

Getting Internet was more of a chore tonight. Luckily, I was able to get it to work but only by using the cell antenna that I have mounted on the roof that is hooked to a 3 watt amplifier. That setup has allowed us to have phone and Internet in locations that would have otherwise not been possible on this trip. 

We look forward to our stay at Yellowstone, our favorite National Park.

September 3, 2013.. We had a beautiful drive today from Casper, WY to Cody, WY where we are spending the night. Some of the area we passed through was dry, and desert-like and some was really beautiful. The most beautiful part was coming through Wind River Canyon. We had made that drive 5 years ago, but we had forgotten how beautiful it was. I will include some photos I made there, but they will not show you the real beauty.
We passed a few signs along the route that stated it was the Sandy Creek Massacre Trail. We were curious about what happened at the Sandy Creek Massacre so Reta looked it up while we were driving along. What she read sounded even worse than the Wounded Knee Massacre. If you are curious, do some searching on Google and read about what happened. It was a very sad event and I know it will touch you. I do hope you will take the time to read about it. I still don't know why the area we were in was called the Sandy Creek Massacre trail since the massacre occurred in Colorado.

Tomorrow, we will begin our stay in Yellowstone National Park. We will be staying at various campgrounds in the park during the next 11 nights. I don't know when we will have Internet so there will probably be some days or blocks of days where I can't post anything. I will be back to posting as soon as I get Internet again. By the way, I am getting Internet for the laptop computer where I am doing this blog through my phone with it creating a wifi hotspot.

Wind River Canyon

Hot Springs State Park at Thermopolis, WY

Below...This was originally a fountain. The high content mineral water caused the build up to completely cover the fountain.

September 2, 2013.. Today we left Hot Springs, SD and went south to the Oregon Trail Wagon Ruts State Historic site near Guernsey, WY. The Oregon Trail began in Independence, MO and went to Olympia, WA. The trail was used by people going west during the gold rush and also to settle the west. It was really interesting to see how the wear of the wagon wheels had cut down into the rock. As you can see by the photos below, the ruts were deep.
Not far from the wagon rut site was another state historic site called Register Cliff. This is where travelers on the Oregon Trial would cut their names and dates into the rocks. There was also a small cemetery near the cliffs. According to the information there it was common to have graves near a river crossing since so many people were killed while crossing the rivers. The river beside the cliffs was the North Platte.
We had planned to go to Fort Laramie today but due to a mistake I made putting in the information into the GPS, we had to skip that stop. I was disappointed that we didn't get to go because I goofed.

Photos of  Hot Springs, SD and a park walkway that has a waterfall beside it.

 Photos of the Oregon Trail wagon ruts

The Register Cliff was where people traveling the Oregon Trail carved their names in the rock.

The hole in the cliff (in the photo above) was a tunnel that had been blasted out of the rock where they could store their food in the summer.

We are spending the night in Casper, WY.

September 1, 2013..We really hated to leave the Pow Wow this morning but we did leave and drove on to Hot Springs, SD. We stopped several times to read markers showing where the Deadwood stage trail had been. The markers said the wagon wheel ruts were still visible but we could not locate them. We stopped and spent some time in Wall, SD. Wall Drug is located there but the reason we stopped was to go to the Wounded Knee museum. The Wounded Knee massacre is a really dark day in our nation's history. On December 29, 1890 the US Cavalry massacred almost 300 Indians. Many of them were women and children. Some of the children had powder burns where they had been shot at very close range. I have wanted to visit the site of the massacre, which is about 80 miles south of Wall. However, we decided against it and, instead, went to the museum in Wall. We were both touched by what we saw and learned at the museum.