Yellowstone National Park
DAY 3

How do you describe a day like this? Well... how about rain, snow, sleet (but no hail). Temps in the 30's and 40's. We spent most of our time in the car and got drenched whenever we ventured out, but in order that our faithful followers are not disappointed -- here are some photographs that we managed to get.

As we approached Jackson Lake Lodge in the Tetons, we were bid farewell by 2 moose. Only one is pictured. It was still dark and our pictures did not come out well.

Our first stop in Yellowstone was at West Thumb where we saw a very frozen Yellowstone Lake.

Below is Black Pool (now more blue in color).

This cute Snowshoe Hare was hiding in the trees along the trail.

Next, we headed toward Upper Geyser Basin. We stopped first to take a photo of Keppler Cascades.

Before pulling into the Old Faithful parking lot Sharon got a great shot of these two "red dogs." How cute are they?!

It was so cold at Old Faithful. As we pulled into our parking space it had just finished erupting. In fact, the crowd of 25 people had already dispersed. We were not going to hang around for another 90 minutes. Did I mention that it was cold AND rainy?!

We looked around in Old Faithful Inn, got some hot chocolate at the Old Faithful, then took off looking for bears. Although they had been spotted recently at the geyser basins, we were greeted only by Yellowstone's more famous residents -- bison.

This cow and calf had just come from a field where both were still displaying remnants of having just given birth. The little one was so wobbly but staying right with mom even as they walked into a parking lot and with 5-feet of unsuspecting people near their cars.

We stopped at Sheepeater Cliff and saw a marmot.

Looking up at the rocks above Rainy Lake (near Roosevelt) we saw this black bear coming down toward the road.

It went across the road and up the hill on the other side. In the mean time we found another small black bear just a few hundred yards farther up the road.

As we passed Calcite Springs there were a lot of photographers looking up into the trees. I think it was Rosie and her 2 cubs, but by the time we visited Tower and turned around the crowd was gone.

Across the canyon we saw some ewe big horn sheep hanging out on the cliff walls and ram big horns butting heads on top.

We headed out to Lamar Valley where we met Bill and Linda Kaiser fron Helena, Montana and Bart from the Netherlands. We looked through some scopes and binoculars at black bears about a mile away, then decided to look for more action toward Soda Butte. On the way, Sharon spotted a mountain lion on the rocks across the raging river but we were unable to pull over to take pictures.

Below are bison in Little America.

And more in a meadow beside the Gibbon River.

Below is Chocolate Pot on the banks of the Gibbon River.

We headed back to West Yellowstone, MO where we will be sleeping for the next 2 nights. Good night!