George & Sandy's Great Adventure: Magnificent Yellowstone National Park

Note: The Blogger software that hosts my blog is acting up today and there are huge gaps between photos. I can not control this frustrating situation. Sorry.

Today was day two of four that we will spend in Yellowstone National Park. The park is huge, containing 3468 square miles. I don't think we will get to see all of it. Yellowstone is the world's first national park, established March 1, 1872 by the signature of President Ulysses S. Grant.

As we drove through parts of the park we could not help but marvel at how fortunate we are to have not only Yellowstone, but so many other national parks and monuments as well as state parks that preserve so much of nature. I was trying to imagine what the park would look like today if it were not preserved. No doubt the lakes would be surrounded by resorts and condos and millions dollar homes, and property owners would be complaining about wildlife -- if any were still alive.

Fortunately, the parks are ours to enjoy forever.

Wildlife is abundant and this is THEIR home so we need to be careful as we drive and walk through their land. This big Bison was meandering alongside of the road.

Everywhere we have driven, we have seen water. Lakes, rivers, backwaters, creeks, small streams and marsh areas are never far from view.

Rainwater that falls in front of this sign runs toward the Atlantic Ocean; rain that falls in back of it flows to the Pacific Ocean.

I really liked this scene with snow-capped mountains in the background and steam escaping in the foreground. It makes we wonder what use Native-Americans made of the park's thermal areas.

We stopped for lunch alongside a lake and found some friendly Gray Jays. This one was fond of seven-grain bread. I let one of the Jays have a few bites of my plum -- after I had all I wanted.