Special Guest Blogger

Hi everyone. Special Blogger Nathan here. I want to share some of my favorite photos so far on what I am calling Nathan’s Exceptionally Bad Photographic Travels through the West! Here we go…

So we start our tour at the Painted Canyon at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Everyone seems to want a picture of the entrance signs to national parks. My photo of the entrance sign leaves much to the imagination. You just have to believe me that it is the TRNP entrance sign. After this one I just gave up on the sign photos. We went on to the Southern Unit of TRNP where we met our first bison.

After TRNP we entered into Montana. This is the longest state we will travel and the one that we will probably log the most miles in getting to and from Olympia and Olympic National Park. We will not be spending a night in Montana. Not because we don’t want to or for some moral or religious reason. It just worked out that way. On to Cody Wyoming, our headquarters for the Yellowstone leg of this adventure.

Mary and I are greeted by this bear with a mask at the hotel in Cody. Isn’t it adorable! The hotel is wonderful with yummy food and comfy beds. What more could we ask for? On to our first day in Yellowstone.

The trip from Cody to Yellowstone follows the Shoshone River. Mary says there are two types of people: Lake people and river people. Mary is a lake person. I love rivers. The Shoshone is a beautiful river. Lots and lost of great views, people fly fishing up and down the river. We stopped along the river at some point and Mary took a lovely video of the river. I got the best mystery photo I have ever taken.

We did finally make it to Yellowstone. A bit of a traffic jam at the east entrance-apparently we were not the only ones interested in visiting the park that day.

First stop Lewis Falls. It is a beautiful 30 foot waterfall completely blocked by my fingers. Luckily Mary got some really good photos here.

I did get a really good shot of the log jam downstream from the falls.

Stirring isn’t it. Ok, so on to bigger and better right? Here we go. we motored around Lake Yellowstone and saw some bison along the way. Every time we saw cars backed up we knew someone had spotted wildlife somewhere, most likely bison. I was driving so did not take any photos of the random bison chewing on grass along the road. Mary did, and she has them on her posts. I refer you to those for good bison photos.

We made it around Lake Yellowstone and headed south toward Grand Teton National Park. Now Grand Teton National Park is wonderful. It has some of the most exquisite mountains and views imaginable. I do feel a little sorry for it though because it has Yellowstone as its neighbor and Yellowstone tends to draw a lot of attention.

The day we were at Grand Teton it was pretty hazy. I got a great picture from a parking lot of things that look like they might be mountains somewhere in the distance.

This was at Colter Bay, where we took a little hike. Here is a shot of the trail we walked.

The trail took us past Colter Bay and the docks. Now when I say docks I am technically correct. However with the drought that is hitting the West really hard the word bay has a very different meaning.

Jackson Lake was formed by glaciers and enlarged by a dam where it flows out as the Snake River (one of my favorite rivers, remember I’m a river person). Because of the drought they have had to drain a lot from the lake for irrigation and water downstream, so Jackson Lake, like many lakes and reservoirs around here, is quite low.

Yes those are the Tetons in the background and yes that is my finger at the top of the photo.

On to day 2 at Yellowstone National Park. What amazing sights will we see that I don’t capture in pictures? First stop the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River where I get a fantastic pic of some boulders lining the trail.

The Upper Falls are shorter but I like it a lot. That does not mean that I get great pictures of it. Here is Mary’s foot at the Upper Falls

I got both my feet

That’s the falls kind of in the background

And here is one of the Upper Falls that is hidden behind a bunch of trees.

Well on to the Lower Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Will out photographic luck change?

Not a bit…somewhere back there is the Lower Falls.

Here is my shadow admiring the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Fantastic isn’t it.

And finally some random guy’s feet with mine on the trail.

I look like I am wearing a skirt.

After the falls we wanted to see the Grand Prismatic Pool. So it’s off to Midway Basin. Lots more bison along the way. I mean lots. That means lots of delays for stopped traffic. I am thinking we as a society are starved for wildlife. Any animal in the park seems to be able to make traffic come to a complete stop. That is especially the case when the bison is walking on the road, which happened to us twice our second day in the park. Fortunately for us both times the bison was walking in the middle of the oncoming traffic lane so we could slowly pass by.

Anyway, we made it to Midway Basin and were lucky to get a parking space. It was packed. Like I said, we were not the only ones to think of visiting the park. I got some really nice shots along the boardwalk. Like this one of the boardwalk.

And this action shot of our feet on the boardwalk.

I got this one of Grand Prismatic that only has a little bit of my finger in the shot.

I am adding in a real photo of Turquoise Pool. I call Turquoise Pool the Forgotten Pool because it is at the end of the Grand Prismatic Loop and everyone seems to just walk past it, like meh I think I’ve seen enough pools now, time to go back to the car.

We were getting to the end of our day but wanted one last stop. Had to visit the Yellowstone Inn. Almost hate to say it but we didn’t have a lot of interest in seeing Old Faithful but the Inn was our final target. It did not disappoint as this picture of the Inn completely obscured by my fingers attests.

Hey look. Another bison.