A photographic ramble through our trip across the Wild West and Yellowstone. Scenery, wildlife, hikes and towns. Related Images:
Archive for October, 2012
2 October 2012
Wildlife of the Wild West
We saw 27 mammals. The only two we don’t have photos of are the Yellow-tailed chipmunk and the Eastern fox squirrel. Related Images:
2 October 2012
Last lunch
28th September 2012 Right on the cusp of leaving (I write this on the plane home) we finally had some memorable eats in America. Denver is certainly a big enough city to have a modern restaurant scene, but last night we found the first couple of hot spots we tried to be full and so » » »
2 October 2012
Hitting Denver
27th September 2012 Our journey back to Denver has been through small town America. Very small town America. “Population 135” read the sign on the way into one scattered cluster of tumbledown clap-board shacks and rusting mobile homes, and I’m fairly convinced the sign was over-estimating. Move away from the handful of tourist spots or » » »
2 October 2012
Cave and Mammoth
26th September 2012 It’s feeling like the end of the holiday. We did squeeze in a couple of attractions today; the Jewel Caves National Monument and the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs. The caves are the second most extensive in the world, but of course our tour only peeked at a fraction. Nevertheless, I’ve never » » »
1 October 2012
Wall Drug and Badlands
25th September 2012 Today we visited a huge and endless expanse pretty much devoid of any interest, and we also visited the Badlands of South Dakota. Wall Drug is, according to some, the second most famous site in South Dakota (after the presidential noggins). Poor ol’ South Dakota. Wall Drug is a rambling shop that » » »
1 October 2012
Mount Rushmore
24th September 2012 Today ought to have been a trip to watch the famous bison round-up in Custer State Park. However, advice on all sides last night was to get there at 6am in order to queue with 20,000 others to get in before the round-up takes place at around 9am (all 10 minutes of » » »
1 October 2012
Plague and hyperbole
23rd September 2012 Today Maureen diced with death. She fed bits of Oreo to a chipmunk when we stopped to take in the views on one of the high mountain passes. A lady passing by issued this dire warning: “you want to be careful, chipmunks carry bubonic plague.” Yes, that’s right. Rats, chipmunks, gophers and » » »
1 October 2012
Yee-haw
22nd September 2012 Can I get a yee-haw? We left the Yellowstone area for another long drive today, right across Wyoming to the small town of Buffalo. This is the real Wild West, home of wagon trains and cattle round-ups, shoot-outs and indian war parties. And we did flash past a group of gen-u-ine cowboys » » »
1 October 2012
Silvergate
21st September 2012 Last night and tonight we’re staying at Silvergate Cabins, just outside the park. My parents got unlucky; their cabin has mice, who came out at night to eat their hot chocolate and poo on the table. We have a colony of sagebrush voles outside our cabin; they’re sweet little things and don’t » » »
Tags: accommodation, wildlife
1 October 2012
A grizzly sight
20th September 2012 This morning we got ourselves out early again, another 6:30am start. We didn’t see anything much in the morning mists until we slowed to a crawl past the place where the ravens were on the deer carcass. Lo and behold, there was a grizzly bear on the kill! We’d never have spotted » » »
1 October 2012
Wolf jam
19th September 2012 Arooooooo! We drove back up through the Hayden Valley this morning, seeing nothing more than bison, and found that the elk carcass had a wolf chewing on it. Over the course of an hour there were four different wolves at the meat, and near the end a brave little coyote showed up » » »
Tags: wildlife
1 October 2012
Yellowstone trio
18th September 2012 How have I managed to travel for a year around the world, staying in over a hundred different lodgings, and never left a single thing behind in our room? And then I come to America for two weeks and leave my satchel including my wallet in a cabin at Signal Mountain Lodge? » » »
1 October 2012
Tasty geyser
17th September 2012 All around the world people who visit tourist destinations are left with a terrible impression of that country’s cuisine. I remember visiting Paris, years before we started dining Michelin-style, and leaving with the impression that French restaurants are horrible places where steak comes as a scrawny piece of leather and hollandaise sauce » » »