A Paddle at Guernsey and a Stop in South Dakota

We actually got a sunny or mostly sunny day. Of course it was our last full day at Guernsey State Park. The original capacity of the resrvoir was 73,810 acre feet but has been greatly reduced due to silt deposits down to 46,000 acre feet. It is still a large and very beautiful reservoir. We had a nice paddle with tall rock formations and lovely yellow flowering trees. There were some dark looking clouds and so we didn't have a real long paddle. It ended up raining just as we got back from a walk later in the day.

We saw several deer walking through out campsite.

A couple more pictures below from one of our drive's including the Castle, which is an interesting rock building that has a fireplace and is a nice place for a picnic.

We absolutely loved this place and are hoping to come back here in a few years if our plans work out.
Our next stop was Rapid City in South Dakota. We stayed only two nights at a commercial campground just outside of town. We needed to renew our licenses. As our previous time getting our licenses for the first time 5 years ago, we had a short and sweet experience. We walked in without an appointment, filled out the form, then immediately were helped by a very nice gentleman. He entered info on the computer, took our receipt for our night's stay at the campground, had us do a vision test and get our picture taken. He then printed out our new plastic licenses and we were out the door. So simple. We then stopped at Walmart and then went to visit our financial advisor at Amerprise. They are a small family office that includes Thietje Hunt and his wife Donna, their daughter, Tiffany and Jody who they call their adopted daughter as it is a family business. They are great people. They had coffee and donuts when we got there and brought in sandwiches when our meeting was done.  It was nice to see them again. We got a little other business done that day and the next day we made our way to Billings, Montana where we stayed at a Cabela's Sporting Goods Store where they have free sites just for overnight rvers and truckers. We did do a little shopping there. I had to buy some new sunglasses as I forgot to put a leash on my other ones and they fell overboard when we were out kayaking at Guernsey. Luckily they were cheap sunglasses from Walmart and I had them for several years. Joe got a new rain jacket and we got back to our RV when it started raining. I think we will use our new rain jackets(I got one at REI in Denver recently). quite often on this trip. We are now at Dick's RV Park at Great Falls for a night. We did laundry and a trip to Walmart. Tomorrow we head over the border at Sweet Grass, Montana and on to our first stop in Canada at a place called Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park in Aden, Alberta. It looks like an interesting place. We won't have internet unless we find a place with WiFi but will post when we get a chance. Stay tuned.

Yellowstone where the Buffalo Roam

We made an one night stand in Great Falls and on Saturday drove to Yellowstone Edge RV Park between Livingston and Emigrant. It is 31 miles to the north entrance of Yellowstone. We plan to be here most of the week. It is a nice full service campground right on Yellowstone River. Unfortunately we weren't able to get a site on the water but still nice views of the hills

Sunday we just went into Bozeman to do some grocery shopping.  Just relaxed back at the site the rest of the day, catching up on blogs, updating ours and reading our favorites and Joe catching up on work. Also getting use to the heat as weather was mild during our Canada time. Monday it was almost noon before we headed for Yellowstone. We are taking Savannah and so will drive through the park, stopping at various sites. However, we will come back another day without her to walk some of the trails that dogs are not allow on. We were here in early June of 2003 and stayed at Fishing Bridge, which is right in the middle of the park.
This time, we weren't sure if everything would be booked and so decided to stay out of the park. Yellowstone is just huge and has so much variety in this volcano area, known for its geysers and waterfalls as well as its abundant wildlife. We decided to take the big loop, going down from the Mammoth Hot Springs down to Old Faithful and then around to West Thumb and Grant Village area to check out possible kayak spots and up past Yellowstone Lake towards Tower Falls.

                                                   
 We stopped at a creek to watch our first sighting of wildlife in Yellowstone and a man fly fishing. He looked like he knew what he was doing  We stopped at a creek to eat the lunch we packed.

Onto Old Faithful, which is always an experience. Eruptions can shoot 3,700 to 8,400 US gallons of boiling water to a height of 106 to 185 feet lasting from around 1.5 to 5 minutes. The average height of an eruption is 145 feet (44 m).^[7] The highest recorded eruption was 185 feet high. Intervals between eruptions are between 65 to 90 minutes apart these days.


Old Faithful




Another shot




Another geyser just down the way

We checked out West Thumb and Grant Village and will most likely kayak in this area later in the week Our drive continued along Yellowstone Lake. This lake is the largest in the park and covers 136 square miles with 110 miles of shoreline. We took a boat cruise on the lake the last time we were here,  which was definitely worthwhile.

What a great drive. We were wondering if we would see any bison and had about given up when we saw a bunch of cars at the side of the road WOW, a whole herd up the side of the road. One was even standing in the parking turnout. What an experience!!!!

In an average year, there are about 3,000 bison in the park. They are the largest land mammal in North America and are very impressive. We watched them for awhile. Savannah, of course, had to stay in the car, and was checking them out and barking. She wanted to play with the big "dogs". We continued on with just more beautiful scenery and an Elk right at the North Entrance.

Roosevelt Arch

It was after 7 o'clock by the time we got back to our site and topped off the drive with a rainbow.  It rained in the evening, which was fine by us as we had a gorgeous day.