Road Trip to Yellowstone & More
We just finished a 12-day road trip to Yellowstone National Park & other places along the way. 4004 miles round trip. We've been resting for a couple of days, but I think I am still exhausted. I've hardly begun to even look at the pictures I took, but at least I got them all off the cameras and onto the computer. Well...at least I got MY pictures off the cameras. 
Day 1: Central Texas to Raton, NM
1. Cell phone pic from the moving vehicle. These wind farms were everywhere in west Texas. Everywhere.
2. My daughter hadn't been to any of the other states we visited, so a 'must' for her was to get a picture of each state's sign. Welcome to New Mexico.
Day 2: Raton, NM to Sheridan, WY. This was Mother's Day. Many of you might remember what the weather was like in Colorado and Wyoming on Mother's Day. Yep, it snowed. Lots of it. It made for a stressful day for sure. We had planned to drive to Jackson, WY but had to change our plans because the road was closed to get us there & we weren't sure about the south entrance to Yellowstone anyway. So...we drove to Sheridan, WY instead.
#3 Welcome to Colorado
4. Raton Pass. It was hazy & sunny here. These are the Sangre Cristo mountains on the horizon. I think that's what they are anyway.
5. It started snowing on us about the time we hit Denver. At first it was a slushy rain, and then it was just snow. Here's a view out my passenger window from just north of Denver.
6. By the time we got to Ft. Collins, CO, my view looked like this:
7.
8. The road ahead: The road itself was pretty clear & not slick. We just couldn't see anything but white all around.
It was snowing too hard & my husband didn't want to stop for us to get a picture of the welcome to Wyoming sign. He just slowed down a little. My cell phone didn't even get anything but a white screen... We ended up getting a picture of the Wyoming sign later in our trip, lol.
9. Finally drove out of the snow. This was the road just north of Casper, WY. What a difference a few miles made. No traffic though. We certainly weren't used to having the roads to ourselves, but we liked it!
10. We stopped for gas. I thought the view was nice.
11. Finally stopped for the night in Sheridan, WY. This is the view from our hotel room.
Day 3: Sheridan, WY to Yellowstone National Park. After two days on the road (and one of them a messy snowy day), we were more than ready to get to our destination. We stopped in Livingston, MT to eat lunch & had to hang around for a while in a place where we knew we could have cell phone service. My daughter had a telephone interview scheduled, and we didn't want to risk not having service once we got to Yellowstone. Smart move.
12. Welcome to Montana
13. Made it! This is my husband and daughter by the entrance sign.
14. Can't go to Yellowstone and NOT get a picture of the arch... Of course, there were cars behind us & hubby didn't want to stop, but he did. Up to this point, all the pictures I have posted were taken with my cell phone camera (usually through our dirty car windows). The next couple were taken with my Canon G-12.
15. One of our first views of the park:
16. We saw lots of Bison during our drive from the North Entrance to the Old Faithful Inn.
17. This is another cell phone pic. As you can see, this Bison was very close to the side of the road. Of course, everything we saw that I wanted to photograph was on my husband's side of the car.
18. We also saw a coyote, but it was really too far away for the G12.
19. I think this was the Firehole River.
20. Finally made it to the Old Faithful Inn. We were happy to get there & were very tired. Here's the view from our room. It's not great because of the screen on the window. The steam you see behind the building is not smoke. It is steam from one of the geysers (not Old Faithful).
I'll stop for a little while now. To this point I still haven't unpacked the dSLR and most of the cell phone & G12 shots are unedited, but that changes with the next morning. I am sorting through day 4 images now & will post a few when I'm done. I promise the next bunch will be better than these have been so far.
Sherry
Day 1: Central Texas to Raton, NM
1. Cell phone pic from the moving vehicle. These wind farms were everywhere in west Texas. Everywhere.
2. My daughter hadn't been to any of the other states we visited, so a 'must' for her was to get a picture of each state's sign. Welcome to New Mexico.
Day 2: Raton, NM to Sheridan, WY. This was Mother's Day. Many of you might remember what the weather was like in Colorado and Wyoming on Mother's Day. Yep, it snowed. Lots of it. It made for a stressful day for sure. We had planned to drive to Jackson, WY but had to change our plans because the road was closed to get us there & we weren't sure about the south entrance to Yellowstone anyway. So...we drove to Sheridan, WY instead.
#3 Welcome to Colorado
4. Raton Pass. It was hazy & sunny here. These are the Sangre Cristo mountains on the horizon. I think that's what they are anyway.
5. It started snowing on us about the time we hit Denver. At first it was a slushy rain, and then it was just snow. Here's a view out my passenger window from just north of Denver.
6. By the time we got to Ft. Collins, CO, my view looked like this:
7.
8. The road ahead: The road itself was pretty clear & not slick. We just couldn't see anything but white all around.
It was snowing too hard & my husband didn't want to stop for us to get a picture of the welcome to Wyoming sign. He just slowed down a little. My cell phone didn't even get anything but a white screen... We ended up getting a picture of the Wyoming sign later in our trip, lol.
9. Finally drove out of the snow. This was the road just north of Casper, WY. What a difference a few miles made. No traffic though. We certainly weren't used to having the roads to ourselves, but we liked it!
10. We stopped for gas. I thought the view was nice.
11. Finally stopped for the night in Sheridan, WY. This is the view from our hotel room.
Day 3: Sheridan, WY to Yellowstone National Park. After two days on the road (and one of them a messy snowy day), we were more than ready to get to our destination. We stopped in Livingston, MT to eat lunch & had to hang around for a while in a place where we knew we could have cell phone service. My daughter had a telephone interview scheduled, and we didn't want to risk not having service once we got to Yellowstone. Smart move.
12. Welcome to Montana
13. Made it! This is my husband and daughter by the entrance sign.
14. Can't go to Yellowstone and NOT get a picture of the arch... Of course, there were cars behind us & hubby didn't want to stop, but he did. Up to this point, all the pictures I have posted were taken with my cell phone camera (usually through our dirty car windows). The next couple were taken with my Canon G-12.
15. One of our first views of the park:
16. We saw lots of Bison during our drive from the North Entrance to the Old Faithful Inn.
17. This is another cell phone pic. As you can see, this Bison was very close to the side of the road. Of course, everything we saw that I wanted to photograph was on my husband's side of the car.
18. We also saw a coyote, but it was really too far away for the G12.
19. I think this was the Firehole River.
20. Finally made it to the Old Faithful Inn. We were happy to get there & were very tired. Here's the view from our room. It's not great because of the screen on the window. The steam you see behind the building is not smoke. It is steam from one of the geysers (not Old Faithful).
I'll stop for a little while now. To this point I still haven't unpacked the dSLR and most of the cell phone & G12 shots are unedited, but that changes with the next morning. I am sorting through day 4 images now & will post a few when I'm done. I promise the next bunch will be better than these have been so far.
Sherry
Visit my galleries at: http://psphotos.smugmug.com/ and/or http://pollettsquaredphotography.smugmug.com
0
Comments
2-1: This is Old Faithful. We were on our way to breakfast when my daughter checked the app on her phone and said it was about to erupt. So, we started to detour out to see it & didn't quite make it around the building. Bad angle, but hey...it's Old Faithful! I also didn't have my 'big' camera with me (we were just going to breakfast after all), so this one was taken with the Canon G12.
2-2: We started to go back inside when my husband noticed a different geyser erupting. I'm not sure which one it was.
2-3: After breakfast, we made out way back down to Old Faithful for the next eruption time. I had set up a nice spot to take pictures. Just about the time she blew, another photographer walked right in front of me and set up his tripod. I was annoyed (yes, he saw me there first), but not much I could do about it. Well, actually I did move so that I was slightly in front of him. That put me a little too close to get all the plume, but I still got a few decent shots from there. My husband thought it was comical.
2-4: I took this pano with my cell phone. The area around the geyser basin is fairly non-descript but there is really a lot going on. Plus, I just loved the snow-capped mountains in the background.
2-5: There are lots of geysers in the Upper Geyser Basin at Yellowstone. Actually, the majority of the world's active geysers are right here. By golly, I think I took pictures of every single one of them. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact names of every single one.
2-6: At some point, I got smart and decided to always take at least one picture of each geyser, pool, or spring that included the name sign for it. Ha. So, this one is called Shield Spring. I thought it interesting that some of the springs had calm, clear water but some had cloudy water or boiling/bubbling water, some were blue, some were orange, some were green...All different and all very pretty.
2-7: This is my husband and my daughter taking pictures of something interesting. Hubby is using the GoPro that we gave him as an (early) birthday present so he could use it on this trip. Daughter is using a Canon Rebel XS. Yep...we all have different camera brands... Oh...it was cold at Yellowstone. At least, it was much colder than we were used to. It was in the upper 30's this morning. It did warm up to the 50's later in the day, but the mornings were quite cool.
2-8: Another general shot of the geyser basin. You can see the tip of a pool in the bottom right corner, another pool at the middle left edge, and a number of steam vents from various geysers in the background.
2-9: This I believe is the Crested Pool. I thought it very pretty.
2-10: Every so often, you would come across a tiny little pool or geyser that wouldn't even be marked.
2-11: Another little pool that I thought was pretty. I just loved the deep blue color. I think that is the Firehole River in the background.
2-12: Not a great shot of this, but sometimes you came across bubbling mud.
2-13: Another interesting pool.
2-14: Hubby and daughter got a bit ahead of me. I guess I stopped too much to take pictures.
2-15: This is a 3-shot pano of the Beauty Pool. I still didn't quite get the whole thing in frame.
2-16: I thought the patterns under the water were pretty cool. This was covered in about 2 inches of running water.
2-17: Another pool I don't know the name of.
2-18: This is the Morning Glory Pool. I just couldn't quite get it all in frame.
2-19: My husband took this shot of me by the Morning Glory pool. This is one of only 3 pictures taken of me the entire trip.
2-20: On our way back toward's the Old Faithful Inn, we came back by the Riverside geyser just as it was erupting. It was actually more spectacular than Old Faithful. I took this with my cell phone.
2-21: My daughter by the Punch Bowl Spring.
2-22: As we got closer back to the Inn, another geyser was erupting. This one is the Beehive geyser.
2-23: After lunch, we headed over to Biscuit Basin to look at more geysers and springs. This is the Black Opal Spring. I loved the milky blue color.
2-24: Here's one of the Sapphire Pool. This one has nice clear dark blue water.
2-25: We moved on to the Midway Geyser Basin. This is where water from the springs in this area drain into the Firehole River.
2-26: This is the Excelsior Geyser crater. Unfortunately, the cold air mixed with the very hot water in the geysers and springs made for a lot of steam vapor. There just wasn't any great pictures to be had of this area. So, I have a lot of pictures of steam blocking the view of the geysers.
2-27: This is a cell phone pano of the Grand Prismatic Spring. This is usually a very recognizable feature of Yellowstone and one that appears in many pictures. We had too much steam vapor to really see it well.
2-28: This is a 5-shot pano that I put together of the same location. Sigh...I almost hate to say that I like the cell phone shot better. Either I'm a lousy shot (probably) or I just have a darned good cell phone camera. Lol.
2-29: We went back to the Inn and relaxed for a while. We did a LOT of walking during this day and we were a little bit tired. We sat on a bench overlooking the lobby of the Inn, so I took a few pictures. These didn't turn out great (G12 and cell phone), but the Old Faithful Inn is really a cool place to stay. Sorry the lighting is bad & I didn't use flash.
2-30.
2-31. Look at all the logs needed to make this roof!
2-32.
2-33.
This concludes day 4 of our trip, but our first full day at Yellowstone National Park. I'll post more from the rest of the trip if anybody wants me to. I still have about 750 pictures to sort through, so it may take a few days.
Thanks for looking.
Sherry P.