John and Jill's Yellowstone Road Trip

In May, 2000, Jill and I took a two-week road trip to Yellowstone. Bikes on top, backpacks inside, new digital camera in hand, we set off in the trusty Toyota van for a fun adventure.

After a sweaty day of mountain biking near Idaho City, we found a tiny roadside park, complete with hot springs.

Stopping at Craters of the Moon National Monument, we explored Indian Tunnel, among other locations...

We crossed into Wyoming near Teton Pass, where a group of snowboarders were heading up for some turns. Seeing all the snow, we began to regret bringing bikes instead of skis...

And once we were in Wyoming, we started seeing wildlife everywhere...

Yellowstone, of course, is home to many spectacular geological features... Geysers, pools, mud pots, and other formations...

Of course, Yellowstone is home to scenic beauty, as well. The famous Yellowstone Falls, in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, has nearly become the cliché of waterfall pictures.

We took a hike along the Yellowstone River, near Hellroaring creek.

Covering 10 miles on the first day was Jill's idea. We were useless the next day, though we had a fine campsite when we finally arrived...

Leaving Yellowstone, we were the first tourists over the scenic Beartooth Highway for the season. It was, as it often is, totally fogged in until we broke out into a rainbow on the other side.

In Montana, Garnet used to be a town of 1,000 people until the price of gold went down in the twenties. It's now being reconstructed to give a feel for what life in this town high in the mountains was once like.

The Berkeley Pit is the deepest lake in Montana. An abandoned open pit mine, it's also the most toxic. When they turned off the pumps in 1981, groundwater slowly filled the 1,900 foot deep pit through the maze of underground passages.

When we drove down the Lochsa river in Idaho on the way home, the Swallowtail butterflies were out in force, along with Memorial Day weekend thrill-seekers...