Ho, hard foa catch up! Especially since we went on another road trip to Montana. I figure that I’ve got at least a year of road trip photos to share. Hold on for the ride… unless it’s too boring. Then come back anyway, because I’ll write about other stuff too.

When I ended Part Twenty, we were just about to leave Hayden Valley.

There were bison everywhere down there, and I could’ve stayed and watched them forever.

Even resting and lying down they look huge!

Here’s what the sign says. (Sorry no can read the smaller part.)

Hayden Valley: Former lake bed.
Though pine forest blankets much of the Yellowstone Plateau, Hayden Valley is treeless grassland. The broad valley floor, low hills, and vegetation pattern show the ghost-contours of a former lake.

Fed by melting glaciers, ancient Lake Yellowstone rose 270 feet during the recent Ice Age, and an arm of the lake flooded this area. The forested ridge across the valley marks the former shoreline.

After reading the sign (it was cold out of the car!), we turned around, and guess what?

OMG! Right up there in front of our car!!

And still more! Traffic came to a stop in a hurry. The bison have the right of way, and nobody argued with them. All of us were gawking at the sight! Bison jam!

This guy looked as though he was surveying his kingdom.

With shaking hands and holding my breath, I zoomed in on his magnificent head, and was able to get this shot. Close enough to even see his eyelashes! I couldn’t believe it!

Awesome, yeah? Musubi was so excited. He’d never seen a bison so close before. And like I told Nolemana, I’m easily entertained. Don’t need (or want) a cruise somewhere that costs ukuplenny kala… I’m content with Yellowstone.

I wanted to stay longer, but not knowing how much time it’d take us to get all the way around the park and to Old Faithful, we reluctantly left Hayden Valley. After the bison moved, of course!

Further along the road we saw this sign… sounds kinda scary, yeah?

This is the mud volcano. In Yellowstone, you never forget that you’re in a huge geothermal area. But the neat thing about it is that there is a huge variety of areas where the steam vents occur. Some just steam, then mud like this one.

Speaking of steam vents, do you see anything special at this one? Look closely.

Give up? Let’s zoom in. Try look da bison just walking through the steam as if it doesn’t matter!

We’d been following the Yellowstone River and had read the sign about Yellowstone Lake, but were pretty unprepared for the beauty that we saw next.

We had absolutely no idea before today that Yellowstone Lake even existed, and were blown away by its beauty. We got out of the car to take photos; it was really windy and only 34 degrees! Ho da cold!

Looking across the lake. I bet it’s gorgeous in winter!

Yellowstone Lake is ginormous!

The road led us away from the lake for a bit.

We were so glad that it was such a beautiful day. The air was crisp and the skies were so blue, and that made for a wonderful day for holoholo ka‘a.

This looks like the result of a fire.

Soon we were driving alongside the lake again. We were really glad that traffic was so light. I bet it’s not like this in the middle of summer!

This is Yellowstone Lake with Flat Mountain in the background. I’m wearing my hand-knit (by me!) baby alpaca scarf as we drive along; I was really glad I’d brought it along.

If you look closely, you can see the steam vents on the other side of the lake.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really expect to see steam vents next to a lake. Until now, that is!

I wish we’d had time to pull over here and go right down to the lake.

Just beautiful, yeah? And I love the log fence, too.

Now we’re near Grant Village. There’s a lodge there where people can spend a night or two. Or three.

We kept on going, on our way to Old Faithful.

This is along the road towards Old Faithful. We’re about five minutes past Grant Village.

Ho da cold!!

Oh wow! Da Continental Divide! From here, the waters are separated to flow either makai or makai. Ahahahaha. Makai to the west, makai to the east. Hard to make island kine directions work here! Wanna see where the line runs north and south? Try go here.

We were obviously pretty high up here.

Notice anything about the sign? Nice sign, true. And nice shot of Nolemana, yeah? This will count for 50% of your final grade, by the way.

Now can you see?

Oh! You found him! Congratulation. A+.

Musubi was loving it. He made me take his photo over and over again just to prove he was really here.

Right near by was Isa Lake. Frozen.

About 4:40 p.m., we finally arrived at the entrance to Old Faithful. The trip so far had been absolutely fabulous, and now we were really here!

See?

 

Really, really here! We were so dang excited! We had no idea how often Old Faithful erupted nor how long we’d have to wait if at all. But we were here!

Again, we were warned about Bah Booze. You know who you are, brah!

 

This is the entire distance that we came during this blog post. And though we were tired and it was late, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world. If we’d gone the original way, if that road hadn’t been blocked, we would’ve missed Hayden Valley and Yellowstone Lake!

Next time, I’ll have photos of Old Faithful. I’d seen photos of it before, but nothing could’ve prepared us for seeing it in person.