My sister Rebecca and her boyfriend Scott came to visit me. It was a most excellent time.

Here are some pictures of their first full day here. We drove down to Yellowstone.

If you are ever at Old Faithful, try and check out the myriad of different geothermal features in its vicinity. I know Old Faithful itself has the brand name recognition, but in my opinion it is one of the least interesting sights to see in the area. I’m just sayin’…

These were all taken during a walk around the Old Faithful area.

My friend Valerie is visiting and we just came back from a brief trip to the Tetons and Yellowstone. I’m getting more pictures than I know what to do with and going to Glacier later this week is not going to help that situation.

We saw some really excellent geothermal features around the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone yesterday. The geysers and multi-colored pools are some of my favorite things in Yellowstone National Park.

Due to overwhelming demand I bring more captures from last weekend. Awesome sweetness. (Robin I owe you one)

These pictures were all taken in and around Gardiner. That little town really grew on me. Usually we just pass right through it and it was fun to be able to hang out for a little while. It doesn’t hurt to be with such a swell group of folks too.

Luke, Kez, Hilary, her friend Stephanie and myself went down to Yellowstone by way of the northwest entrance in Gardiner, Montana. Here are some pictures of Gardiner. It is a nice little town, especially in the winter when it isn’t overrun with tourists.

When we rode up into town that elk was just hanging out in someone’s yard. They said that they will tag elk only if they are troublemakers. So I thought keeping my distance was a smart idea.

This was the second time in a week Kez and I had made the trip. I thought this Geothermal Feature was especially cool.

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Here are the promised pictures from Yellowstone a little while back. It was a lovely day, warm and sunny. We drove past a lot of people watching wolves with high-powered telescopic devices, we walked amongst some Buffalo, thousands of tarny marmots (which is what Luke kept calling them even though they looked like squirrels to me. They live in the ground like prairie dogs in big communities and our trail seemed to go right through a rather large one.

Also, I am finally totally finished with school. Year one complete. All in all I am rather pleased with what has been presented me out here and what I have made of it. Huzzah! I about a week and a half of almost total freedom until summer session starts.

Every spring and fall some roads in Yellowstone are closed to cars but open to bikers as they get ready for the changing of the seasons. Yesterday I experienced this for the first time with a 42 mile trip from Mammoth Hot Springs to Norris Geyser Basin and back. I bought a new bike last week, a Giant OCR 1. It is a road bike. I’m excited about it. Yellowstone without any cars is rather grand. The weather was fairly warm (despite there being an abundance of snow that hadn’t melted yet). The 42 miles went by quite quickly. Riding a bike made for the roads is a lot faster than riding a mountain bike with some slick tires on it.

The 3rd picture is the Boiling River. It is a lot of water that emerges from underground after being heated inside the earth. It is quite warm and swimming directly in it is illegal. However, right after the spot where the picture was taken it meets with the very cold Gardiner River, and that is where you can swim.

The really hot water meeting the cold water makes for a very good temperature. Its like a giant outdoor hottub that is continually flowing past you. I’d driven past it many times, but never actaully checked it out. It is quite awesome, I’ve never seen anything like it. You just hang out in this warm water and watch the elk around you, (we actually saw a bald eagle as well). Pretty classic stuff, I was feeling very spoiled by my surroundings yesterday.

The last one is Luke pondering. When I learn how to put text inbetween these pictures I will, but its not really that easy to do if you don’t know how.

We did some snowshoeing around Yellowstone yestery. It was quite interesting. A beautiful sunny day that wasn’t too cold if you kept moving, ( I think the temperature was probably right around 0 or maybe a little in the negatives).

Also, In the top left if you look under “pages” you’ll see I put some information about the class I’m going to be teaching starting this friday.