The Yellowstone!

Western Wyoming is so beautiful! The road into the eastern park entrance is magic. Every turn is a different canyon view for about 20 miles. I can understand why so many romanticize the cowboy. This place is huge-just like everything else in the west-bigger than life. You can easily spend the better part of an hour just driving from point A to B inside the park, so it's hard to see everything unless you take a good week or more. The park is so unique. Every mile brings a different vista, or wildlife surprises, or some of the strangest terrain anywhere with the widespread geo-thermal activity. Anyway, we spent yesterday & today touring the park. We had beautiful weather both days, & hiked enough to guarantee good sleep tonight. Our favorite setting was the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. (picture included) I heard a really interesting explanation for its formation from a park guide. She first gave the standard "This formed over umpteen years" kind of stuff, but then offered that there was an alternative theory whereby an ice-age dam may have given way & cut the canyon out in a matter of hours! How about that?! I think this is now the dominant theory for the Skagland canyon country in the northern mountain states, & of course a similar event occurred with a small canyon formation after Mt. St. Helens blew. Anyway, do you know how hard it is to select pics from here for this blog? T'aint easy! If you want more fom this trip, we'll gladly edit for the best & make CDs when we finally get back. I'm starting to doubt that 4 weeks will be enough. Anyway, our hearts lay further west, so we're out of here tomorrow. Hasta la vista.