Odometer: 145540
Distance So Far: 822 Miles
Days On the Road: 3
Final Stop: Billings, MT

From Dad:

September 3, 2025
We got out earlier than we expected this morning. We drove the hour back to West Yellowstone to the Bear and Wolf Reserve. Linda got to see her bears. They mostly played in the water, until their dinner bell rang, at which time they high-tailed it and disappeared into their building. Fortunately, had our cameras ready to take pictures of them running to fill their tummies. There were also three wolves at the Reserve. We were able to get quite a few pictures of them, once they came out into the open. There were also two owls, three bald eagles, and a vulture in the aviary, plus an otter and some other small animals in the Riparian building. We spent a couple of hours there, and enjoyed it.

We then headed into Yellowstone, heading around the north side of the park. I don’t think I had ever been in that section of the park before. We saw hundreds of bison in several different herds. Other than one antelope, that’s all the wildlife we saw in the park, other than a few birds.

At that point, we headed toward the northeast entrance to the park, known as the Bear Tooth Byway. I had read recently that this was a road worth travelling. Wow. I mean, WOW! The road leads through deep canyons with high mountains all around, and then it goes over a 10,000+ foot summit—as high as some of the peaks we had just driven past. It’s not the highest road in the US—Long’s Peak in Colorado takes that prize. But we were up at tundra level, similar to the drive at Rocky Mountain National Park. For 10 to 15 miles, the road wound up one side of the mountain (serious dugways) then down the north side (roughly a 7,000 foot drop once we had finally reached the bottom)! I highly recommend this drive—but it’s not for the faint of heart. Linda drove this section, so I was the one cringing in the passenger seat, not
being in control of the vehicle around the sharp turns. Don’t get me wrong–she did an awesome job. But what an adventure.

An hour later we were in Billings, getting gas and heading for our motel. Amazing day!