Yellowstone 2nd loop

As promised, here is our 2nd day into Yellowstone Park. Another 5 am get up and on the road by 6:30. It took us all day, as we never got back home until 9:30; 15 hours in the park. It was nice and cool to start the day and our first stop was another of those vertically changing waters. It was up a canyon called Firehole Falls. It was still all in the shadows. Everywhere we went on this loop we ran across more rivers with hot water and steam leaking out of the earth.
If not steam, how about mud pots bubbling up. Lots of strong sulphur smell.

This was our firs elk of the day and also the first with a rack. Boy was he big.
After a few hours we finally arrived at "Old Faithful" and had about an hours wait until it's scheduled eruption. We are sitting about in the middle so this is just about half of the people waiting with us. A bunch of kids at one end started a "Wave" and after about the third try it finally went end to end of the boardwalk.
Here she blows...what more can we say except "we have seen it" now. We walked to the post office about a half mile away only to find it closed, so back to the car and hit the road to find a place for lunch. Because of our delay in getting out of the parking lot, most of the other people had left and the road was ours again.

We crossed the Continental Divide twice and on the second time we ran across the road to have another couple take this in exchange for us taking there picture. (They were from Texas.) Still a little cool at this elevation.
This is where we stopped for lunch but had to get wet getting to the table. All of the rivers are very high this year due to lots of snow and a late melt.
This is the second elk we found and again it had a rack. We later ran across more.

What can I say, how did this tree survive and grow on the edge of the cliff in the rocks?
Pictures of what is called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It was late in the afternoon when we found this place and most of the people had left, so we had lots of time to get some good pictures. One with trees and one without. What a contrast.

We ran across Bison all day long but got a kick out of these two on the way out of the park. I can just hear them whispering to each other, "this is our road so let's just stand here and get our pictures taken".
It was a long and wonderful day. We stopped at lots of places in the park and just took our time and I was able to take over 70 pictures. In contrast to this we met another couple who jumped out of there car and both took several pictures and told me that they take about 1,600 each, each day. Must be professional photographers. The problem with this they only get to see the sights if they take the time to look at the pictures.

We are now in Ennis, Montana and it's in the 90s with the wind just rocking the trailer. Went to the Rodeo (my first) last night but left the camera home.

Happy 4th of July to all