Yellowstone

Okay, where to start with Yellowstone?  At the beginning?  We took the snow coach from West Yellowstone to Old Faithful.  The snow coach has "Caterpillar" tracks under the back and skis at the front.  It carries up to about 10 people and has a luggage rack up top, and some hatches for popping out the top for better views and photos.  It is very noisy at top speed, which may have been 30 mph.  We felt lucky to have Zac as our driver all three times we used the snow coach, but since we never had a different driver, we may be wrong.  Zac was very friendly and knowledgeable, and we got to see three coyotes fighting over a mouse with him (i worded it that way special for the grammar police!) plus he was happy to stop and sight-see plus he gave us a water bottle when he dropped us for our cross-country skiing adventure.  After our 10 mile ski, which kicked our butts to the extreme, we were sitting in the lodge and felt a small earthquake, of which they have had many, recently.  We also saw plenty bison, and were trying to stay the required 25 yards from them, but they were in our way, damn it.  I felt like the soccer players setting up the wall in front of the free kick, pretending they don't know what 10 yards is.  So we may have been a bit closer than 25 yards, but not enuf to be dangerous, or in trouble with the law.

We saw lots of impressive geysers and colorful pools and steamy things.  Beth kept dragging me thru the steam with her because the guy at the hot spring spa in Pagosa Springs told her such stuff has health benefits.  We saw some Bald Eagles on their nest, we saw lots of Elk, and we just missed seeing three wolfs at an elk kill.

I had a Bent Nail IPA from the Red Lodge Ales Brewing Company of Red Lodge, MT., in the dining room, and it was good, but it cost $4.50, so after that we made do with our stash of Santa Fe, which i discovered i could keep cool and safe by putting it in the crawl space under our cabin thru the access hole in the bathroom floor.  I thought long and hard about leaving a beer down there for the next person to think of it,  but my thrifty nature got the better of me, and the next visitor to the crawl space will find an empty six-pack and an apology for it being empty.