Friday July 5 saw our daughter, son-in-law and their three youngest kids leave Liberty. My, how quiet it was…for a little while. Just after noon, our granddaughter Alma from Atlanta flew in for a week. Of course, she is just one, not three, and 15, not 8, so it still didn’t get very loud except when we were playing games and Papa was winning!
We don’t get to see Alma very often, so we packed a lot of memories into our week. We took her to see everything we’d experienced in Yellowstone with the other family and another part we’d never seen. That’s Tower Fall behind her in this picture. The trip that day took us only a long drive (with construction waits)
through the northern part of the park to the north entrance at Gardiner, MT. Since it was starting to rain and even hail a little, we didn’t get a picture of her at the Welcome to Montana sign, but we did get pictures of the entry arch to prove we’d actually been there.
I had been told by a local woman that Mammoth Springs area wasn’t nearly as pretty as it used to be, but the stone terraces and frilly looking places created by the water are still very impressive.
I’ll have to say we came to take the bison for granted in the park, we had seen so many of them. Still, it’s pretty neat to have one coming down the middle of the road to meet you,
or walking so close to your car you could reach out and touch it!
Still, when we saw cars stopped in front of us on the roadway, we couldn’t help hoping they were looking at some other animal. We were rewarded a couple of times with glimpses of male elk with huge racks, but they were pretty skillful at hiding so we had to look closely.
The day we were in the Old Faithful area, Castle Geyser was putting on a show. It must have erupted for at least half an hour, much like we remembered from our visit two years ago. It even provided a cool mist shower for anyone in the vicinity.
Our week went very quickly and before we knew it, Friday rolled around again and it was time for Alma (and us) to leave Cody. We put her back on the plane shortly about 1 pm and climbed back in Liberty to head for greener pastures. You know, the New Christy Minstrels sang a song that says green, green, it’s green they say, on the far side of the hill. We take our quest for that greener grass very seriously and yesterday we came through the Bear Lake area of Idaho and Utah. The Idaho part wasn’t part of the original plan but a propane spill in Utah re-routed us north to Montpelier, ID.
The road between Montpelier and Logan, UT, while it provided some beautiful scenery, is one we probably wouldn’t do again in a 40-foot bus. The climbs weren’t so terrible steep but very, very long and difficult for Liberty. The twisty turns of the descent kept me very thankful for a strong, skilled bus driver! Praise the Lord, we are now residing safely in Logan waiting for tomorrow when our oldest granddaughter, Jordan, will be off work and we can spend some time with her.
