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Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Last night at 10:00, fireworks started being launched all over Gardiner.  Businesses were shooting them, individual people were shooting them from their yards, they were everywhere for almost two hours!  I know my description might sound scary, but it wasn’t.  It was fantastic and up on our hill we had a wonderful view of it all.  Needless to say, we were up later than usual.  We still managed to leave the campground about 9:30 this morning.

On our way in went by the front of the Roosevelt Arch to get a look at the Grand Entrance in to the park.  Pronghorn antelope were waiting for us at the gate this morning!  Once we finished admiring the antelope and made our way through the gate, we went straight to Old Faithful since we didn’t get to see the Geyser Basin last time.

 

The children did really well on the loop today.  Since we arrived too early for lunch, but too late to walk the loop before lunch we bought some ice cream and slush drinks in the Old Faithful Inn.  We took this with us on our walk and it kept us cool for our walk.  We were able to see some geyser have mini-eruptions.  The most impressive of these was Castle Geyser.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the Geyser Basin we headed to the Whiskey Flats picnic area and ate our lunch.  After lunch we headed to Canyon Village to get Liam a souvenir.  While there a ranger had pelts of a black bear, grizzly, coyote, fox and a wolf as well as antlers from a big horn sheep.  Liam (and everyone else) checked that out while the children browsed.  After each child had selected an item we headed to Mammoth Hot Springs.

On the way to Mammoth Hot Springs we caught the tail end of a wildlife jam and according to the ranger, missed a black bear.  We did however see a lot of bison, some elk and a lone pronghorn antelope siting in Phantom Lake.  I also saw a bear on one of the hillsides opposite us, but there was no where to stop the car we weren’t able to get a picture.  I do have a nice memory though!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we reached Mammoth Hot Springs, our goal was to eat at the Mammoth Hotel Dining Room.  My mother wasn’t crazy about the lack of air conditioning in the building, so we decided to go into Gardiner for supper instead.

After a few minutes we ended up in the Antler Pub and Grill.  I choose this place primarily because as we were looking around Fionnuala had to an urgent need for a restroom and they were the closet place.  It turned out to be a good fit for us though.  The food was good, the staff were friendly and the portions were huge.  The children enjoyed looking at the animals/antlers on the the walls as well as the photographs of local wildlife.  It was also nice to see that they only serve beers made in Montana.  The menu is what you would expect from a place that calls itself a pub, but was far better than I would expect from a restaurant locate inside a Comfort Inn!  Everyone was satisfied with their meals, and I was especially impressed with the freshness and variety in the salad I received with my sandwich.

Liam’s Highlight of the day:  Buying his toy moose
(Fionnuala’s Highlight of the day was Castle Geyser)

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