We then drove on into Montana. I didn’t take many pictures there, and unfortunately our VW van couldn’t really take advantage of the lack of speed limits on the interstates. I did take one picture which I thought would be really beautiful but unfortunately it’s really dark. This is the moon rising over the foothills of the Rockies in western Montana.
We then went into Yellowstone National Park. I was really amazed at how tame the animals there were. At the park headquarters there were elk grazing on the lawns – I bet they never even need to mow them.
We saw the terraces and pools of incredible colors – at the time I didn’t yet have my polarizing filter so I don’t really like how most of these pictures turned out. There were a couple that I like and those are included here … We’ll just have to go back for more.
As we drove through the park we encountered a roadblock of bison… they too are so unafraid of people that they just walk across the road. Nobody even dared honking their horn for fear of pissing off these massive ruminants, lest they charge and knock over their car. Eventually they moved on, and so did we.
We never did get to see the infamously tame bears of Yellowstone, however. The park rangers have been making a strong effort to relocate them away from the more human-populated areas, for safety reasons.
We then drove to the Grand Tetons National Park, which is adjancent to Yellowstone to the south. Grand Teton is French for “Humungous Hooters” and was named by some really lonely horny French fur trappers in the 19th Century.
We then passed through a corner of Idaho and into Utah. In Salt Lake City I took this picture of the Utah state capitol building at night.
We camped on a side road just west of SLC for the night. In the morning we took this shot of the salt flats from a rest area. We then drove straight home and made it back in about 12 hours.
