Daily Life

Well, it isn’t Crater Lake, but Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons are still pretty awesome on their own…

This is the Lewis River, on the south side of Yellowstone.  There are few, if any, guardrails along this narrow, winding road.  It makes it interesting when there is a fifth wheel trailer half the size of New Jersey being towed the other way!

After passing Lewis Lake and crossing the Continental Divide, I reached Yellowstone Lake.  The south end of Lewis Lake is actually on the Cauldera Boundary, of the Yellowstone Super Volcanoe.  It is several thousand years past-due for an eruption, BTW.

In 1988 vast areas of Yellowstone, and the West in general, burned up because of forest fires, mostly Nature caused.  It is actually a good thing, although too many fires at once was a bit of a problem.  Forest fires renew the forests, clean out the deadwood, and is needed for some seeds to germinate to grow new forests.  Logging used to replace a lot of the forest fires in the natural scheme of things, until the Enviro-whackos decided we need to leave the trees, dead or alive.  Then they get upset when the forests burn out of control on all of the deadwood under the trees!

I stopped on the north shore of Yellowstone Lake to grab a quick lunch.  This Gray Jay decided he wanted to share it.  (I chased off the Raven that also wanted to share it; he would have taken it all and flown away!)

These are photos I took while the camera was sitting on the picnic table.  I just turned it and shot.  This second photo could actually be a different bird.  The first one flew away and I don’t know if it was the same on that came back.

Second version!  Not quite enough depth of field…

An attempt to get “artsy”.

And another.

Here are some of the mountains across the lake.

Then it was down the road again!  Lots of miles to cover at a less than optimal highway speed (National Parks have reduced speed limits; necessary with the crowds, but occasionally aggravating).

~Curtis in National Parkville! {!-{>