The last time we were at Yellowstone, we did the geyser route and saw Old Faithful and all the bubbling mud pots. This time we went in through the east gate and saw the lakes.
The drive to the east gate is Highway 14 which goes along the Shoshone River and the drive is called the Buffalo Bill Scenic Drive. It is very scenic.
You start in the high prairie which is pretty much the same thing as a desert with a lot of grass. It is very brown with dead grass. Soon, you get to the Buffalo Bill Reservoir and the Shoshone River. Things start to get a little greener here.
After the lake, you get to the canyon that you see in the picture above. The rocks in the canyon change color every few miles. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the colors do change. It was cloudy so the don't photograph well.
Right after the east gate of the park, you start to see the results of a forest fire. Most of the standing trees are dead. Some survived, but not all. Most of the green trees are small. The mountains are still green because of the ground cover and the wildflowers.
After this, we arrived at the lakes. Sylvan Lake, Yellowstone Lake, and several small ones that don't have names on the map.
We had the dogs so we couldn't stay out all day. We turned around when we got to an overlook of Yellowstone Lake.
The only town between Cody and Yellowstone is called Wapiti. There is a large house on a hill overlooking the highway. It looks like a bunch of mining equipment piled up into a house. This is not a good picture. The house needs to be lit up better for a good picture.
As always, there are more pictures on the Wyoming page.
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