Day 12 - Kalispell - Yellowstone - Cody, WY

Today, David and I left Andrea & BJ's around 8:30 after an AWESOME cherry coffee cake and coffee for breakfast. It was SO good hanging out with them and we hope to see them again soon. We got on the road headed for Yellowstone National Park. We stopped by University of Montana in Missoula (Gil!) but didn't really do anything.

We arrived to West Yellowstone around 2:00pm and did the northern loop.....we stopped at several hot springs, overlooks and saw some cool wildlife,
including our first BEAR of the trip!

David spotted it as we were driving past and we turned around to get a picture of it. I never realized how large Yellowstone was and how many people would be visiting it.
I thought it was awesome in so many ways and so love the opportunity to visit it. I did realize, however, that you develop a special relationship with a place that you actually walk through, instead of drive around, stopping every once in a while for a cool picture. So, it doesn't quite top Glacier, but is very cool in itself. After we finished the northern route, we headed east for Cody, Wyoming to catch a rodeo. Cody is the Rodeo Capital of the World and the nightly rodeo we watched has been going on for over 70 years. One guy rode his bull for 8 seconds, so that was cool because he was the only one to get a score. Some of the bulls were stubborn and it was entertaining to watch the clowns and the ropers get the bulls out of the arena.
Fun day and we'll be doing the southern loop of Yellowstone, Grand Tetons and heading into Jackson, WY tomorrow night. We'll catch up then!