Yellowstone Mammoth Hots Springs and Norris

We left our hotel in the Lake Village and visited the Norris and Mammoth Hots Springs Areas.

This is the Opal Geyser Pool located in the Norris Geyser Basin.  The Opal is my favorite volcanic feature in the whole park!  This picture does not begin to show how beautiful the color is, or how clear the water is.

This is part of the geyser basin between Norris and the Old Faithful areas.  The volcanic core just under the surface heats the water and it bubbles up here through pools, geysers and this "waterfall" looking geyser that then empties into the river here. 

The mountains in the distance were very beautiful too.

The Mammoth Hot Springs area is in the Northern most part of the park.  We saw some amazing volcanic formations here too.  The Hotel and "town" part of Mammoth Hot Springs is the original headquarters of the park when the army was stationed here and ran the park.  This is still the headquarters and the area of a "village" were most of the park rangers and employees live.

Yellowstone East Entrance

We arrived at Yellowstone through the East Park Entrance.  

A few Buffalo were just walking along the road.  We later learned (from a park ranger) that the Buffalo number about 3,500 in Yellowstone Park and are the only pure bred (Bison Bison) anywhere in the world.  He told us that there are other smaller herds in the USA but those animals have been bred with cattle and can no longer be called pure.

We enjoyed the drive from the East Entrance to the Lake Village area of the park.  We stayed at the Lake Hotel. The Hotel was built in the late 1800's and added on to in the 1920's.  After checking in we drove north through the park to the Canyon Village area.  During this drive we visited the Mud Volcano and Sulphur Caldron sections.

While visiting the Sulphur Caldron spot (a nice boardwalk that covers about a 1 mile loop) we saw more than Volcanic Pools and Geysers...we saw a Grizzly Bear.  We were all very quiet and moved very slowly...the Grizzly was very close to all of us tourists!

Closer to the Canyon Village area we visited the Upper Falls and Lower Falls.  Artist Point is also near here and should not be missed...the rocks are beautiful reds and yellows and the canyon is so vast and deep it is called the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone".  I wish we had a nickle for every time we said, "WOW" because we would be rich!  All in all this was an amazing first day in Yellowstone Park!

Devils Tower National Monument

 Devils Tower is an amazing and peaceful place.  It is America's first National Monument (1906) and has been well respected and preserved.  Again a day of temperatures in the high 70's.

 We had lunch at a cafe in Sundance, Wyoming and then drove a short distance to the National Park.

 Can you see the two climbers on the lower, center of the photo? 

We walked around the base of the Monument and enjoyed beautiful views alsong the loop.  The Lakota Tribe and other Tribes who live and lived in the area consider this a scarced place.  We found it to be special too.

Crazy Horse Monument is Crazy!

 We were excited to visit Crazy Horse Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  It is located in Custer County near Keystone and Hill City.  However during our visit we kept wondering why no Native Americans worked on the monument in the past or present.  Visit Wikipeda by clicking here to learn about the monument and some of the controversy.

 The original idea was started by a Native American Chief who was a survivor of two famous battles with Custer.  The sculptor of Crazy Horse, Korczak Ziolkowski was fired from the work crew at Mount Rushmore.  We couldn't help but feel that some of the reason's Ziolkowski too on the project and decided to make it this huge (finished it will be 641 feet wide and 563 feet tall).  This sculpture has been 50 years in the making and currently has only 7 people working on it.

The family of Ziolkowski still works on the project today and has a foundation that supports this private enterprise.  Crazy!

Mount Rushmore

 Mount Rushmore is an amazing engineering and artistic wonder...not to mention a patriotic symbol of America's founding, preservation, and expansion.  We arrived on May 11 in the evening and visited the monument each of the three days we were in the area.

On our second day in the area we enjoyed a cloudless sky and unusually warm temperatures (high 70's).  The monument is beautiful from the observation point in the National Park.

 And beautiful from a distance driving up to the park entrance.

 Another view driving in the area gives a closer look at this side of the mountain and monument.

Taking the foot path to the base of the monument affords closer views of the sculpture. 

The park's foot path trail includes a visit to the studio (you can see his scale model of the sculpture with the monument visible through the window in the photo above)  of artist and sculptor Gutzon Borglum.  Gutzon was the son of Danish immigrants.  He and about 400 workers sculpted the 60 foot tall monument from October of 1927 to October of 1941.  Click here to learn more about Mount Rushmore at Wikipedia.com.

Scenic Drives

The Black Hills area offers so many scenic highways to enjoy. We drove the loop that included the Needles Highway, Iron Mountain Road, Pigtail Bridges, Sylvan Lakes Area and Custer State Park.

This was the "Eye of the Needle" on the Needles Highway.

We enjoyed the tunnels in the Iron Mountain Road that provided framed views of Mt. Rushmore.

We had a nice dinner of Pheasant and Buffalo at the Sylvan Lake Lodge. 

After dinner we enjoyed the view of rock formations on the opposite shore of Sylan Lake and later viewed Buffalo, Elk, Deer and Turkeys in Custer State Park.

Badlands National Park

Yesterday we spent some time in the Badlands National Park. The Lakota people called the area mako sica and French Trappers knew it as les mauvaises terres a traverser. Both mean "bad lands."  Lakota and early settlers called it this because they were bad lands to travel over. They are beautiful to us as modern day tourists enjoying the paved roads that allow access to the peaks, gullies, buttes and wide prairies.

How unbelievable this landscape is after traveling through the flat prairies. 

It seemed to just appear out of nowhere to me.

The round hole in this section of rock was beautiful.

The jagged rocks with bands of color were amazing too.

This vast expanse was a breath-taking view for both of us.