Ginormous Friday in Yellowstone Post ...

When I say 'Ginormous' - I am not kidding around. There are approximately 90 photos in this post. One part to follow is on Old Faithful and I decided on this trip to just film it rather than take photos, which means I didn't take photos. In the time it took me to DOWNLOAD NINETY FILES the movie I took - even trimmed to 48 seconds - as I type is still trying to load on my 'test blog' site, so I might go steal one of Gary's and put it in, or I am going to ignore it all together - so don't think it is all weird when there is no 'Old Faithful' Old Faithfulling ...

Also - sorry to the Facebook folks that read my blog - my parents are not Facebookers and I wanted to share these photos with them, so they are mostly duplicates from my 'Yellowstone - Day 1' album I posted on Facebook late last night - of course, there is no witty dialogue to go with it (a good reason to jump right on over there and look at them on Facebook, I suppose ...).

Got to the park and right off, had a welcoming committee! Handed Gary my camera since he was on his side of the car:

And here is the lovely shot he got while I was taking his photo above:

More welcomers - although they weren't all that interested in us:

Our first stop was to meet up with the fam at Old Faithful, so we headed off, arrived and called to find out where they were. My brother told us and we headed off:

Couldn't find them anywhere in the building that Jeff had described, so I started taking photos of the buildings interior (I forget the name of this building ... apparently so did Jeff ...):

Old Faithful out the window:
I became quite enamoured with the lights:

A photo of Gary calling my brother and discovering that they weren't in THAT building they were in the other one ... waaaay over there - the Old Faithful Inn.

Since I was not feeling well (I know, I know: blah, blah, blah) I told Gary to go ahead and I would wander over at my own pace - this not feeling well on the first day in the park not boding well for the rest of the trip ...

Took photos of the lovely plant life along the way:

Got to the lodge, but they had moved out to wait for Old Faithful to do its thing, so I trudged in that direction:

A shot of the crowd waiting:
My bro, happy as always:

My parents holding up rather well having all six of their children, their spouses and grandchildren there minus Jessie, Ryan and Derrik (my nephew):

Pretend you saw Old Faithful go off - OOOH AHHH!!!

I then headed for Old Faithful Inn since I had missed it and had never been in it before. Gary said he would go get the car while I took some photos - which sounded rather nice.

Little guy I spied on the way over. There were a few people taking photos of him, and he just didn't care. Gary and I decided he was eating grass just to make people feel sorry for him and toss him a Cheetoe or something - I mean, do chipmunks even eat grass?

A beautiful building - very large and could not fit the entire thing in one shot, so just got the entrance:

The entry is beautifully unique, seven stories high and I have never seen anything like it!

This is a funky clock on top of the fireplace:

The different levels. Up at the top is what I was referring to as a 'Tree House' when Gary explained that it is where the band or (very small) orchestra played during its heydays:

Entrance to the restaurant:

A panorama that I tried, and tried to fix the bulge, but couldn't. It is the back side of the Inn ... at least part of it. It is HUGE:

Then on the way to some stinky pots. Gary would know the name of these, but he happens to be at this very moment being very bad, staying up late watching an old western in his hotel in Istanbul, Turkey ... so I am not going to bother asking him the name of the place we were headed to ...

On the way (or sometime thereabouts, I tried to keep all these photos in order, but with 4 cameras active, it was hard to keep everything in perfect linear order as you could with, say, one camera!) we spotted this bison. It was on Gary's side and we were in yet another traffic jam getting past it, I was guessing because everyone was slowing down to look, take a photo, the usual. Right before we got up to where there was a ranger directing everyone to keep moving, I had handed Gary my camera to take a shot, he stopped the car, clicked off one shot quickly and moved along - when the ranger motioned us to pull over. I thought he was giving us room to go take photos! Gary realized right away that, no - we were in trouble. So we sat there and got read the riot act for taking photos while driving. When Gary said that he was not driving, he had stopped the car, snapped the photo, then started again - it did not help the rangers disposition at all! He told us he could ticket us $500.00 and told us to get out of there. We decided that a)He was having a very bad day and b) we should have done what my father and all my other siblings that had this same experience did - ignore him and drive past him without stopping ... thus, probably for the reason for a!

I thought it was a bison and an orangish rock, until my dad said "Did you see that bison licking the dead bison?". Ewww! Was he mourning it? Savouring it? What? But yep, I blew this what-could-have-been-a-$550-photo and there is a deflated bison - sad. I just pretend, since it is deflated, that it is just a bison costume and one of the guys that goes around Yellowstone faking bison so we will all come back and take photos again took it off, left it by the side of the road to go take a leak in the woods and will be back shortly to put it back on ... what?

Stinky pots can be very pretty:

And, I am stunned by the things I find growing out of these places - all so pretty, and ... crazy plants!

This photo is called "Bison & Bluebonnets" - if you look close you can see the lone bison, and I am pretty sure they are bluebonnets, but I am not an expert - even living in Texas:

On our way to the Upper Falls and 'Family Photos' that got bizarre and I am not documenting here!

The day was beautiful and I could not stop taking photos out my window:

We drove by this guy with mobs of people multiple times before we decided to pull over and take a few of our own. He was cute enough, I think it was worth slogging through the field to photograph him:

More photos out the window:

And the Upper Falls in all its glory:

Back on the road and more shots of the beauty of Yellowstone:

We had met up with Jeff and his family at a bridge and he showed us photos of some bison lounging around the front lawn of an inn. We were jealous and skipped out on what ever they were doing at the bridge and backtracked in hopes that the bison were still there. They were!

The lake across from the inn:

On the road again - having lost my family we did our own thing from then on that day. Gary stopping every now and then for me to take photos.

We headed away from the Upper Falls and stopped at some outlooks along the way. I took lots of flower photos while Gary did more hiking than I did:

A group of three bison on the way:

He is definately telling me that I am too close! Just as the ranger did a few moments later yelling at me from a truck to get back:

Look close at this photo, see anything ... odd?

Yeah, that is his tongue UP HIS NOSE! And, oddly, it looks like a perfect fit!

More photos - and since the next pile are just a mix of flowers, a lone chipmunk, and views of the river and falls, I will shut up until the next segment:

"Peeking"
And then we were on our way out of the park ...
I spotted a BABY BISON!!

Walked to the ridge to get more photos and discovered that he was a teenager! NOW THIS was a BABY BISON:

Elk in beautiful late afternoon light:
More beautiful light:

And one of my favorite photos of the trip, I call it "Out of Sync":

It is blurry, but thought I would throw this one in - it is called 'Bottom's Up':

And I couldn't resist taking a ton of photos on the way out with the sun low in the sky - and then couldn't decide between the next few, so I threw them all in ...

We had a baby sunset so I snapped a few shots:

Got home tired, scared to go to bed and be attacked by mice, and then the power failed! I JUST HAD to review all my photos, so when my battery on my computer died, I uploaded the entire day to my iPad and finished reviewing them up in my bed and eventually drifted off to sleep ... woke with no fingers or toes chewed off, so that was good!

And, now, an hour later - my movie is STILL LOADING so sorry folks, no movie, but I am assuming by now you have all given up on this enormous post and won't read this anyway!

Toodles ...