Blanche & Lycy's Visit Deer Lodge, Montana

Blanche and Lucy decided to take a tour of the little town of Deer Lodge where we are camping while viewing Yellowstone - the thing we noticed first was that this town had the most lilac bushes that we seen anywhere... they were every where we turned.









The Old Montana State Prison Museum was one of the most interesting sites to visit in Deer Lodge.









































This was the original jail - but now housed a antique car museum.














We visited the old railroad site here in town.



























Deer Lodge is know for their Draft Horse Expo and festivals. It was a cute little town and we so enjoyed walking it together.













We did a very interesting walking tour of downtown Deer lodge - this used to be the city courthouse.











When we saw the 'Vineyard' sign at the bottom of one of the streets, we thought we were going to find a little wine tasting location - Wrong! It was a church! what a name for a church..... good way to get people in though.... it got us.







On our walking tour of downtown Deer Lodge we found Louie's Montana Beef Pasties shop - though it misspelled Luey's name we just had to....










At the bottom of Main Street we found an entire original homestead. All the buildings in this little homestead village were transported from the area to this one place for visitors to view.








This Carriage House was from a mail order Sears kit! and it now sits in the center of Deer Lodge's little town park where we stopped for lunch.











The evening before we left Deer Lodge Luey & Lucy chased each other in the meadow behind our RVs .....










We said goodbye to Deer Lodge, Montana and packed up to head for our next stop.










On the road again and off we go to Glacier Park in upper Montana on the Canadian border.

Blanche & Lucy go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming

It was a long drive from our campground to see the Grand Tetons - but we enjoyed the trip and views along the way - we were very excited to finally be able to see and photograph them.









The day we got to see the Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole, Wy. it was cloudy and overcast, misty and sometimes rainy, yet their beauty was still a wonder to see. Unfortunately the photography will be better if we can return on a sunny day on another trip this way.





With no foothills to obstruct your view, the jagged peaks and deep canyons of the Teton Range rise abruptly from the Jackson Hole valley.







Here's a closer look at the Grand Tetons.









On our drive we saw these horse riders dressed for the rain enjoying a trail ride.







There is a park in the center of the little town of Jackson Hole which has 4 entrances and at each entrance there is an Antler Archway like this one.

Every year they send boy scouts out to the pastures in the area to collect deer antlers that the deer rub off in the springtime. And from those dropped antlers these archways and many other things are made from folks who go out to the meadows to collect them.






Here's a close up of the pile of Antlers in the arch - as you can see they seemed to just be piled up together and bleached by sun and weather.















In the little town of Jackson Hole where they had tons of little shops and restaurants - they also had a great Stagecoach ride - unfortunately not enough time to take the ride on this visit.








Springtime in Wyoming means all the tulips are blooming.








Lucy said goodbye to Jackson, Wyoming - a place we need to come back to visit again as there is lots to see in this area and we just didn't have enough time to see all that we wanted to see.

Visiting the Grant-Kohrs Cattle Ranch in Montana

Today we visited the Grant-Kohrs Ranch in Deer Lodge, Montana. It was one of the biggest cattle ranches in the country. The family donated all the land and original buildings to the National Park system so that we could all enjoy the history of cattle ranching. Because of the animals - Blanche and Lucy stayed home today.










This is the front porch of the main house which looked out to the west setting sun.








We toured the original house as well as all the buildings on the Ranch.... fascinating history.




The ranch was pristine and original buildings were kept in wonderful condition.










Lyndell was the Blacksmith who had been living and working on the ranch for 35 years. She is one of the few female blacksmiths - we really enjoyed spending time with her - she was a wealth of information about the ranch - as well as life during those times.














Here are some of the horse shoes that the blacksmith made here.












Here one of the cowboys train the horses.











These were the original Bunkhouses for the Ranch hands that lived and worked on the ranch. Inside were original furnishings and set ups to show us how they lived and worked on the ranch.











The Barns, Stables, and all buildings were kept in beautiful condition.










Here go Cheryl and Flo playing 'ranch hands' again.










The barn held wagons that were still used here on the ranch.













This was a - still working - Chuck-wagon, with a cook who offered us fresh coffee made over an open fire - our friend Paul would have loved this.







We took a tour of the Ranch in this covered wagon.













The draft horses that pulled our covered wagon were brought back to the barn when they were done.








This Ranch was also a working farm with lots of 'wildlife' for these 'city-girls'








This cow 'adopted' a second little calf whose mom couldn't feed him - so now she had two little mouths to feed.

Blanche & Lucy visit Yellowstone National Park

Today Blanche & Lucy and their friend Luey were very excited to visit Yellowstone National Park - and as with everywhere in this area - we found yet another painted Bison.







As we got into the little town of Yellowstone - we were anxious to see lots of 'Wildlife' in the park. Yellowstone National Park is in 3 states, Wyoming, Montana & Idaho.



















Yellowstone National Park has acres and acres of mountain, forest, river, streams and hot springs to view... and we loved driving and hiking with the girls - and Blanche and Lucy loved running all over the park every day discovering new wonders.






We found Mammouth Hot Springs Park here in Yellostone ... these were to just tour and view not to dip into - though some seemed more tempting than others to dip into.





We walked along the wooden walkways to each Hot Spring to read about it from the information signs and watched as they bubbled and / or spouted high into the air - with steam billowing.










Each Hot Spring had a different name - Jet Geyser, Paint Pot, Red Spouter, Celestine Pool and more.










This Hot Spring was called Red Spouter...










This Hot Spring was called Fountain Paint Pot - it was thick and looked like bubbling paint -









As you can see the Bison just looked right into the cars as they made their way across the street.











Blanched watched as the Bison rested or started to cross the street.











I shot this image from the backseat of Co's car - that's little simba, the stuffed cat on the dash. As you can see the traffic does not disturb the Bison - we have to stop the cars to let them cross the street or they walk right into you.












The Bison came so close to the cars that you could practically reach out and touch them.














We stayed for 2 eruptions from Old Faithful - the first eruption only lasted a couple of minuets - the second lasted twice as long and erupted twice as high. It's pretty unpredictable which makes it so addictive to stay for many eruptions. Eruptions only happen every 90 min. so it's a long wait in between - of course they have tons of gift shops to keep you busy....







I tried to shoot the series of images as Old Faithful erupted taller and taller. You can double click on the image to make it bigger to see closer.









Blanche & Lucy loved looking for 'Wildlife' and got very quietly excited when they spotted a deer - they didn't bark just hypnotically stared....









On our search for 'Wildlife' - we got very excited to see the Mule Deer resting in the meadow.












We hiked down to the Mesa Falls - upper and lower to get some good photos of rushing water.










There is no shortage of rushing water - rivers and falls with all the melting snow.










If you look closely you can see the rainbow to the left of the falls - it sounded like a thundering train.










We could feel the mist from the rushing falls where we stood behind the guard rail.










Artist Point Falls were spectacular - we were shooting right into the sun - so the falls lit up with beautiful back-light through the mist rising from the river bed.






















As we were leaving Yellowstone we saw herds of Bison coming down from the mountains for their evening dinner - munching grass.











A little Bison Calf in the herd.









After spending 2 full days visiting Yellowstone National Park - we said goodbye to the most prolific of the wildlife that we saw here. Goodbye Mr Bison.