Yellowstone visit

A few more vacation pictures from October.  Following our visit to Alberta, Canada, we drove south to Yellowstone National Park (and to there the Tetons which is the next blog post).  The fall weather was so lovely for traveling (and the crowds quite light) that it was a great time to visit Yellowstone.  As expected, we took a good number of photographs.  Above is one of my favorites; it is a fisherman standing in the water with all the steaming from the undercurrents of this amazing park.  It made me wonder if the water was warm or cold? 

 



Lots of wildlife in Yellowstone.

 



And lots of steam.  Everywhere.  You almost wonder if the place will someday just explode...

 

The bison/buffalo see quite relaxed and not worried about the park exploding...

 



Some of the hot pools of steaming water....

For some reason, this unusual root caught my eye. 

 



And this bison may have felt the warmth from the pavement and decided it was as good a place as any to take his afternoon rest.  Folks just had to drive around him.

 



One of my best memories of visiting Yellowstone was when we came upon a small group of tourists from Beijing, China.  I offered to use their camera so that they could all be in the group picture and then they returned the favor and took a picture of hubby and me together.  But then they motioned that they wanted a picture of them WITH us.  So the one person in the group who spoke English took our picture with the others and, of course, I had to have him take it with our camera as well! 

 



Here we are with our new friends.  Then after we parted, we stopped to view Old Faithful - and so did they, so then it felt like we were old friends!  We watched Old Faithful together and took more group pictures.  It was a nice little episode to an already enjoyable vacation.

 

Ever faithful!  There she goes!

 



Notice the little rainbow from the mist of the eruption. 

It could not have been a better day for site-seeing in Yellowstone!

Bucket list: Lake Louise...

 Following a wonderful few days with family, hubby and I ventured off to celebrate our anniversary at the beautiful hotel on Lake Louise. 

 

 The hotel is large and a delight.  The staff was amazing; friendly and welcoming and thorough.  They made us feel special the moment we drove up and they explained everything before we could even ask a question.  It was just as if they had read my mind.

 

 This well-known view is the one upon which the hotel faces.  What you see in the distance is the Victoria Glacier.

 

We took a few nice hikes in the fresh air; cool but not too cold to enjoy.  Walking to the far end of Lake Louise we took many photographs of the Chateau.  As you can see, there was snow in the higher elevations, providing a nice touch.

 

 The water was such a fabulous shade of aqua blue and the sky was so clear during our 2 night stay.

 

 We had a lovely room facing the lake.  This photograph was taken from our room - it was an early morning shot with the lake calm and the reflection of the vista providing yet another nice scene.

 

 It was mighty hard to not take one photograph after another - each time we viewed Lake Louise it called for a picture!

 

 The calm waters of the early morning.

 

 There were a number of nice restaurants within the hotel but this is likely the favorite of most folks.

 

 As you can see, the casual restaurant near the windows and nice corridor (with some cool shops) to your left.

 

Handsome guy.

 

 We took a few little hikes but as the ground became more snow covered we did have to abandon going too far.  It would have been a slippery walk coming back down and I wasn't interested in that!

 

 

 A view from the hiking path of the blue waters of Lake Louise.

 

The anniversary couple. 

We love Lake Louise, have visited it a few times prior, but this was our first overnight visit and we loved every minute!