55 on the fly

Hayden Valley is in the southern part of YNP and a beautiful place to go to see wide open spaces and wildlife.  Well, we saw plenty of space but not much wildlife.  The gorgeous scenery made up for it and we had a great day.  We stopped at Canyon Village and checked out a small museum there along with the gift shops.  Of course we had to get an ice cream cone too! This is a view near Tower Falls area.  There is a river way down at the bottom of the canyon.  The rock formations are so varied and unique. A view of Hayden Valley. We saw a grizzly bear from the road and that is about as close as I care to get! Here is one of the tour buses that will take you through the park. This view is near Mt. Washburn.  We were so high up and could see for miles!  Notice the burned trees in the foreground from the 1988 fire.  The forest areas are reseeding themselves and the new trees are getting taller.  We are fortunate t...

It has been over one month living in our fifth-wheel RV.  We have two more weeks to go and so far we are really enjoying it.  Our "rig" is very comfortable with all that we need and more.  There is just enough room for the two of us plus our dog Stella.  Here are some pictures of our home away from home. Dining Room and entertainment area. Bedroom; with sink, toilet and stand up shower. Kitchen, living room, foyer.  Can you find Stella?? Here is a view from our campground in Gardiner, MT. This is the entrance to the campground and the view as I take my walk into town almost every day.

Once every season I have a trout dinner here in Yellowstone Country. Today I fished the Yellowstone River in a spot I love to fish the Hopper-Dropper when the hoppers are a hopping.  With a Korn's Split-tail Hopper in tan and pink on top and a Go2 Prince on point they delivered 22 trout to hand in about two hours of fishing.  It doesn't get much easier than that, too easy really, even in the high winds we had today.  I think I could have caught 50+ fish if I had stayed out longer, but I had my limit of trout and I had satisfied my desire to be fishing...  Funny, on the tough days you've got to drag me off the river... Not today, I clipped my flies and headed for the RV.  ~ Dougie Note: see http://55onthefly.blogspot.com/2011/08/lay-z-day.html for my hopper-dropper set-up. These fish are hidden in the rocks below and dart up to take your flies, fun! "on the fly" Rainbow one of several Cutty's caught today... rainbow trou...

This morning we went on a 2 hour horseback ride up at the Hell's-a-Roaring horse ranch in Jardine.  Jardine is a small "town" about 7 miles above Gardiner.  Just getting up the bumpy, narrow dirt road to the ranch was interesting.  We had a wonderful ride through the woods up and down the mountainside.   Here are some pictures of part of the ranch.  Take a look at the building with the sod roof.  They even had pansies growing on it.  You can come here and stay at the house or in tents.  It is a beautiful ranch with so many horses! Beautiful animals and a beautiful view. We were ready to ride.  Doug is on Spike who liked to stop and nibble all kinds of plants. I rode on Rex off into the sunset - or sunrise I guess! Over the river and through the woods.  Rusty!! This is what Gardiner looks like from up past Jardine.  At the bottom left you can see the campground that we are in.  We are parked in...

A natural jacuzzi on the Gardner River where we took a dip first thing in the morning.  Look closely and you will see heads in with all the rocks. We started our morning by taking a dip in the Gardner River.  There is a spot on the river where a boiling pot empties in and mixes with the cold river water.  It is a natural jacuzzi and it was so cool - and hot!!  We sat in the water next to a little cascade and let the river water wash over us.  All around was nothing but blue sky and beautiful scenery.  After we dried off and changed we drove a ways to Roosevelt Lodge and just made the breakfast hour.  We sat out on the old porch and intended to read but the scenery and buffalo were too much competition.  We saw a herd of buffalo right across from the lodge and got out to hear them lowing and calling to each other.  While on our way back to camp we stopped to see some gorgeous views and at one spot saw a golden eagle flying around in a va...

Here is part 2 of our trip on the Beartooth Highway. Buffalo in Lamar Valley - one of my favorite places. At the end of our eastward trip on Beartooth Highway is a town called Red Lodge.  It is an old town with lots of unique shops to visit (much better than my Livingston experience).  We found - of all things - an English pub where we had a nice lunch.  Doug had fish and chips and I had a cornish pasty which brought back memories of my trip to England with my mom.  We walked through some of the shops and then got back on the road to brave the heights one more time.  The views were spectacular the second time since we were seeing everything from a different angle.  We stopped at several pull-outs along the way to marvel at the scenery.  When we entered YNP again we drove until we got to Lamar Valley - one of my favorite places.  We saw hundreds of bison in the valley and some were blocking traffic for a while.  We ate our picnic dinner at...

Today we drove through the northeastern part of YNP through Cook City to get onto the Beartooth Highway.  It is rated the most scenic highway in North America.  Check out the details at the website.   http://www.beartoothhighway.com/index.html I have attached only a few of the many photos that we took today and we knew that we would be disappointed in them.  Not that the photos are bad - they are awesome.  It is just that when we look at them, they do not capture the vastness, the majesty, the sheer height of the mountains that we traveled through and on.  Travelling on this highway was a little daunting.  At times we were so high up that we felt we could touch the clouds.  Of course when you are up that high, it is a long way down.  I tried not to panic as we edged our way back and forth on the sides of the mountains going around hairpin turns that had you looking out over nothing but air.  We climbed up for what seemed like forever awa...

Today I drove into Livingston to check out the small shops in the historical section that I had read about. There is not much in this old town but it was fun to see the old buildings and poke around in the antique/junk shops.  The drive to and from Livingston was the best part of the afternoon.  It is amazing how big the mountains are and how much room there is out here.  When you see cattle on a ranch they are spread out so far and look like little black dots on the landscape.  This is very different than the cows we see in NY all crowded into a small farm area.  Doug stayed home and kept his foot up.  Hopefully the swelling will start to go down soon and he will be back in business.   We had a campfire tonight with the campers next door from Oswego.  We enjoyed the company and the millions of bright stars above us. ~Michelle One view of Main Street Livingston, Montana.  It is an historic place but not much as far as shopping goes. H...

Well, no fishing on this day due to Doug's sprained ankle.  We drove into Bozeman and visited the older part of town with a nice variety of shops. It is such a quaint area and we always like to visit the book stores and the other specialty shops.  Doug sat inside the coffee shop while I visited many of the unique places along Main Street.  Doug made it to a book store or two and we both found some new reading material - as we always do.  We had dinner, stocked up at the local Walmart and drove back to Gardiner.     ~Michelle We had coffee at a favorite coffee shop.  Can you read his mind?..."I'd rather be fishing". Bozeman's Sweet Pea Festival was starting and on this day it was sidewalk chalk day.  Chalk creations were all over the sidewalks. Ted Turner owns this restaurant.  Two years ago Doug saw him there when we were having lunch. I had to put this in for our boys.  BBQ beef  with mac n'cheese sandwich  A ...