Today we drove the Beartooth highway into Yellowstone.  It was an exhausting, long trip, but worth every minute of the drive.  The Beartooth highway twists and turns through amazing, snow-covered mountains, up to a lovely scenic overlook.  After taking many pictures, I turned left to continue up the mountain, expecting any moment to encounter the pass at the top of the range.  But no!  I found long fields, first of grass, and then of snow.  And the car would move around a curve, and the land would fall away to reveal a hidden lake several hundred feet below, surrounded by snow.  And still the car went up and up, with snow fields everywhere you looked.  At 10, 947 feet, we finally reached the summit!  The wind and snow were so cold that I took a fast picture and fled back to the car.  And then we reversed the process, moving through the snow downward through amazing scene after amazing scene.  My favorite photo-op came when I saw a funny little snowman at the edge of a snow-covered parking lot, looking out over an amazing scene of snow-covered peaks, and shimmering mountain lakes. 

      We finally came into the more temperate zones, away from the snow, and stopped for a quick stretch at a little way-side campground.  The mountains loomed above us now, lovelier than ever, but we no longer needed coats and the meadows were filled with fall wildflowers and yellowing meadow-grass. 

      After a short stop in Cooke City for lunch in an outdoor café, we headed into Yellowstone National Park.  By now it was 4 pm, and I had little hope of viewing wildlife.  But the park surprised me.  The mountains weren’t so obvious at first, compared to the wide-open meadows and streams we encountered as we entered the northeast side of the park.  But there was wildlife.  At first a few individual bison appeared picturesquely in the meadows not too far from the road.  Then we saw whole herds browsing down by the river.  And we had to stop the car when a pronghorn sprang merrily right across the road in front of us.  Now that’s not something you see in New York!  We spotted more deer as we re-entered mountain territory, and then I saw a huge white rock looming to my left, and knew we were almost in Mammoth Springs.  Had to be.  That rock held hot springs, or my name wasn’t Sandy!  And I was right.  We parked next to the huge white cascade of rock, and Dad and I climbed up and up to look at the wonderful, colorful hot springs.  The water wasn’t falling over the terraces as it sometimes does, but it was impressive, nonetheless. 

       As a final fare thee well, on our way out of Yellowstone we saw three female elk grazing on the lawn in downtown Mammoth Springs and four mountain goats climbing among the canyon peaks on our way out.  Then we were traveling up the Yellowstone river toward the lovely dude-ranch where we’d booked rooms.  We had the place to ourselves, being weekday guests, and I ended up with my very own cabin that was much bigger than my apartment at home!!  After exploring the grounds a bit and looking across the river to the mountains that surrounded this place, I packed it in early.  I’d been driving all day, and I was exhausted!  But what a great, great day.