We have been so busy lately that I haven't taken time to blog.  Our hotel, Mammoth, opened last Friday.  On Thursday night we went to the "Shake Down" in the main dining room.  This is to give the wait staff a chance to practice before the big opening.  Everyone sat at a table of 4 and we all had to order something different from the menu.  Our "bill" was about $140 which we paid for with "play" money.

Since then we have been doing a lot of hiking in hopes of losing a few ounces before returning to Orlando.  We hiked Beaver Ponds twice and the second time didn't get back to the dorm until 9:30 p.m. just in time for bed.  We also did another hike from Blacktail to Rescue Creek.  This was a 10 mile hike.  One of our friends thought we were lost and notified security.  They (security) saw us in the bar the night of the Shake Down and were so relieved that we had returned safely from the hike.  Another of our hikes was from Mammoth (WY) to Gardiner (MT)  It always sounds so impressive to say you have hiked from Wyoming to Montana.

We have been on a couple of road trips to Ennis and of course several times to Bozeman.

Last Friday we drove down to Lake Hotel which is supposed to open this Friday but we can't figure out how because they are renovating one of the wings and there is construction going on everywhere.   They have jacked the prices up on the renovated rooms.  The lake (Yellowstone) is still frozen over.  On the way back we stopped at Canyon to take pictures.

We will be leaving in three weeks to return home.

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Basin

Frozen Lake Yellowstone

Harlequin duck (rare, hard to spot)

Harlequin ducks

Lower Falls (Canyon)

The beautiful sides of the canyon

Canyon with the Yellowstone River running through it

Canyon

Note the snow on the left side of the Lower Falls

Snow

This is what we woke up to this morning . . .
Going to breakfast and work we walked on solid sheets of ice.  Nothing broken so far, knock on wood!

This was taken out our window.

This one too

Burrrrrrr

ND walking to work.  We could have skated there.

Yesterday the road opened to Old Faithful and out the West Entrance.  We went down today and these are the pictures I took . . .

Snow

Saturday (4-13) we drove almost two hours to Bozeman to see the movie 42.  When we got within about 10 miles of Bozeman it began snowing so hard that we were having white out conditions.  I was driving and could hardly see the front of the car.  The wind was whipping around making conditions miserable.  We did a little shopping and all of a sudden the snow stopped, the sun came out and all was well.  We loved the movie and highly recommend it.

We departed for the park around 4:00.  We weren't out of Bozeman 5 miles when we were hit again with a blowing snowstorm.  Is this the middle of April?  It was hard to hold the car on the road but we chugged on.

These are a few of the pictures we took.

White out conditions

Lamar Valley 4-8-13

It has been snowing and blowing all day.

These are some of the things we saw in the Lamar Valley this afternoon . . .