Good morning from the edge of Yellowstone National Park. Pamelia and I left Maine three days ago for our western bird adventure, which is about to turn into a weather adventure. We spent much of yesterday at Freezout Lake, where thousands of migrating ducks, geese, swans and other birds gather in spring and fall, then shifted our plans because of an approaching storm that is bringing snow, rain and high winds over the next three days. We're in Gardiner, Montana, right now, about half a mile from the entrance to Yellowstone. We went to Mammoth Hot Springs in the park early last evening and will drive all the way through the park as soon as it's light outside. We think we'll end up near the north end of the Great Salt Lake in Utah tonight, but that will depend on the weather and the roads.
I'll try to keep posting photos and updates as I have time and Internet access. The landscape is, of course, gorgeous, and the people we've met have been fun. A lot of hunters are out. It's always jarring to me to see airline passengers dressed in fatigues and picking up gun cases at baggage claim. The rental-car woman at the Great Falls airport told one of them as she handed him the keys to a pickup truck, "If you bring it back muddy, bloody or gutty, I'm charging you for cleaning it." You don't hear that at the Hertz counter at La Guardia.
More from Mammoth Hot Springs.
On the road from the Great Falls area to Helena.