Monday, July 27
Yellowstone to the Beartooths

  

More rain last night and again early this morning and temperature dropped as we headed back to I-90.  Montana is Big Sky country and this morning it is Big Cloud country.

We stopped in the town of Bozeman at a restaurant called Main Street Overeasy, recommended by Trip Advisor.  Very basic place with good food.  Blueberry pancakes, eggs, bison sausage, etc.  There was a photography store right across the street called F11, where Beth found a remote trigger to replace the one left at home.  This will help with star pictures if/when we have a clear night again.

We dropped down to the north entrance of Yellowstone, through beautiful valley and pastureland cut through by the Yellowstone River.

There was a bit of a line to enter Yellowstone, but  at least we could watch several groups of pronghorns while we waited! 

We turned east, planning to go through Lamar Valley and find a campsite.  Many fishermen along the way, and huge herds of Buffalo – easily more than 100 animals.  We stopped to watch these pronghorn testing their horns...

 When we finally arrived at two prospective campgrounds, around 1:00, all the campsites were filled.  So we continued on out the northeast entrance and onto the Beartooth Highway. Yellowstone in July isn't recommended if you don't care for crowds!

 Found a nice National Forest campsite just after Cooke City, Colter Campground.  No tents allowed here, only hard sided campers because it is grizzly territory. 

Greg built a fire but the weather didn’t cooperate, raining on and off.  We enjoyed watching several deer from our site, including this one that had two fawns with her. 

39 degrees by 8 PM – gonna be a chilly night!