Dancing with Wolves

What a difference a day makes, we set off early with clear blue skies and a positively balmy 15degC. Much more fun. Spotted three wolves in a valley, just a few dots on the tele zoom camera. Watched for several minutes as they slowly came nearer. Then suddenly they approached very close and had us dancing round the other side of the bike to escape. Further up the road a park ranger told us they were part of a pack that had killed and eaten most of either a bison or an elk the previous night.

Very Yellow Yellowstone

Sunday, even colder at -0.5degC as we rode around Yellowstone, passing through the steam from the Geysers helped a bit but the comfy warm leather sofas in Old Faithful Inn were a very welcome break from the snowstorm. The Inn is what they call old (ie over 100 years old) and is a truly amazing wooden building where everyone is welcome even if they are not lodging there. We sat on the second floor lounge area and watched the Geyser go off again. Below is a picture of the inside of the Inn with its 80ft high roof. Carried on visiting geysers, hot bubbling pools and steam venting out of holes in the ground. Apparently, several people have been scalded to death by these weird geological phenomena, often by walking on what appears firm ground but is just a thin crust around a bubbling sulphurous pool. To be honest, the sulphurous smell should have warned them to keep clear.
Then on to Yellowstone Canyon, more impressive to us than the Grand Canyon, and very YELLOW.

Snowing in Yellowstone

Leaving Jackson Hole on Saturday the temperature plummeted rapidly as we went north to Yellowstone, just about 10degC for most of the day. The heated seats and grips came in handy. Animal spotter on the pillion seat saw a large animal in the woods so U turn and a bit of boy scout stalking and we came upon this female elk in a clearing, she saw us but wasn't bothered! By the time we got back to the bike there was a road block where people had seen the bike parked, and just stopped in the road and got out to see what we were photographing!
Arrived at Old Faithful just in time to see the rare eruption of the less well known but more impressive Beehive Geyser. The whole area is covered with steaming bubbling pools, odd coloured mineral deposits and spouting geysers, just incredible.
Weather is unusually cold but should warm up again by Monday. Had a few snow flurries and more is likely tonight but lets hope not enough to cover the roads and bike. Hoping to see some bears and moose tomorrow but they can be elusive so just hope to get lucky.

Critters

Staying in Jackson, which is a bit busier and has lots of shops selling all sorts of things related to elk, bears, deer and all sorts of other critters! Some quite nice things others just plain odd as the photo shows. The town square has arches made from antlers, so here we are doing the tourist thing. We spotted the buffalo and mouse while travelling round The Grand Teton National Park today. The landscape is amazing.

Cowboy Country

After 50 more miles of oilfields and antelope the scenery became greener as we reached the Wyoming ranch lands and went on to the Grand Tetons National Park. As we rounded a bend a cowboy raced towards us lassoing a stray calf! On reaching Jackson Hole a shootout was being staged on the street corner. Also in a layby en-route we saw this sign shot through with gun shots, maybe they liked to drop litter!

Travelling Northwards

Spent last night at Vernal in a pleasant b&b style hotel. Vernal itself wasn't exactly a tourist attraction more a busy town serving the local oilfields. Had some good big steaks at what they called a mom and pop restaurant. This morning we went to the dinosaur national park in an area where they have found many complete dinosaur fossils. They had a fantastic cliff with the fossils still there part buried as the paleantologists found them. Then we continued northwards to Green River Wyoming to a really nice modern hotel. The ride here was fantastic over hilly, bendy roads with remarkable landscapes and weird geological formations. We continued on past Flaming George which had spectacular red and orange cliffs by the river. Followed a pick-up truck for miles as he was nearly into 3 figure speeds and we could watch him and get advanced warning of bad road surfaces and deer on the road. Temperature yesterday was in the 90s F, today is a much less sticky high 70s.

Leaving Colorado

Yesterday we rode through great mountains, forests and lakes to Colorado National Monument, a 23 mile drive along the rim of a red rock canyon, weathered into amazing spires and columns. Lots of hopping on and off the bike to peer over the edge. A great finale to our stay in Colorado.

Then came the Utah badlands, 100 miles across bare rocks and sand in 36 deg. heat with a fierce wind sending us all over the road and whipping up dust storms. Nothing to see but oilfields and the occasional tanker depot. Just had to be done in order to get to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.