Return to Yellowstone ...

Our campsite (Headwaters at Flagg Ranch) is located between Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park.  We wanted an opportunity to return to Yellowstone and hoped to find a hiking trail to take us deeper into the park.

First we headed to the West Thumb Geyser Basin in the southern part of the park alongside Yellowstone Lake.  These geysers and hot springs line the lake and form hot springs within the lake ... in winter, otters hang near the warmed waters ... in our case, a couple of ducks sat in the water and watched us.

We then found that magic hike that took us deeper into the park along the DeLacy Creek Trail to the Shosone Lake ... a beautiful valley with a lazy creek winding its way gradually to a large, natural lake.

I thought of our friend, Barry, who labelled every purple/blue flower "lupine" ... whether it was lupine or not because that was the first name that came to his mind when he saw a blue wildflower.  In this case, he would have been right over 90% of the time ... the fields were littered with lupine along with many other glorious wildflowers ... a beautiful hike with very few fellow tourists ... Yellowstone restored in our minds ...