Although, we put 431 miles on the road today and 3,044.8 miles for the trip, we did take a slight detour. The original plan called for a south east cut across Montana, but we cut south so we could visit the Yellowstone National Park. A few extra miles, but well worth the trip since we had never been through the northern section of the park. We spent all afternoon0n touring the park. Did find a secluded little valley with a small river running through it in Montana this morning, if I were to ever leave Alaska I would have to give it a serious look. The picture to the left is a statue of a mountain man commemorating the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Terry thought it would look good at the HITW, but it was securely bolted down. Shortly after this picture, we ran into a fall round-up, took ten minutes to work through a large herd of cattle. We were quite disappointed, four cowboys were herding them but they were diving 4-wheelers! Not the real image of the American cowboy. The next two pictures for Heather, we found the dragons lair! Enlarge the picture so you can read the sign. The following picture is the Dragon's Mouth.
There was steam coming to the surface through the park, even in the parking lots. Is this what Al Gore means when he talks about global
warming?

Today, we saw a minimum of 1,000 buffalo but at the same time we saw at least 2,000 deer inside and outside of the park. Everywhere we looked, we saw deer. We also saw elk, sheep, beaver, all kinds of waterfowl but no moose and no bear!












You will want to enlarge this for a better view, this is a Big Horn Ram and was profiling perfectly on the skyline, a long distance shot but he looked to be a full curl.

Three of the thousands that we saw, these were along the highway and two went under the fence, the third cleared the fence. Terry got it on video, but the camera was set on play and not record.

This was the fall migration of the Buff's, don't know how many was in the herd but we also got them on video on both of the cameras. It took awhile for them to pass, but we learned one thing, the bulls come first followed by the cows and calves. A couple of the primary herd bulls, he "big boys" are constantly making a strange sound, more like a cow grunting as if they are directing the herd. On the video, you will hear Terry encouraging me to stick my hand out the window and touch one, that is how close they came to the truck.

In moving pictures around, I have lost a couple but I will post them later. Tomorrow, we go back into Montana to visit the site of "The Little Bighorn" where General Custer met his "Waterloo".

Things continue to go well, weather has been perfect, a little snow in Canada but thatis it. Dutch has become a great traveler. He spends a lot of time sitting on the back seat looking out the window. Today, he discovered he could go through the window and lay on his bed that I built in the back of the truck. You think he was spoiled before, should see him now! Daylight comes early, see you down the road.