We took the opportunity to go on a couple weekend trips. If we had gone to get Jesse I would have done this Beartooth highway on the way home. But since he took the bus home we took a special trip up there. We drove through West Yellowstone and through the West entrance and headed east. It is a great time to be in Yellowstone,,,we saw Bull elk with their herds, a Bald Eagle, buffalo of course and antelope. It was calm and beautiful. 
We stopped at the Firehole river swimming hole and I went wading. The water was not hot, but not cold either. Nice bathtub temperature. I wished we could have taken a swim. Missed Old Faithful by about 5 minutes, and headed out the East Entrance. We had never been this way and it was fun to see the Sylvan pass and the wide Shoshone river canyon heading to Cody. We camped at Buffalo Bill Reservoir, though I wouldn't recommend it.
We spent the morning at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center which is absolutely fantastic. It would be worth going back to Cody just for that. There are actually five museums. I went through three of them feeling guilty about taking the time. Meanwhile Russ was wandering the firearms museum and loving it. 
When we felt like we had seen enough we headed north to Red Lodge and across the Beartooth Hwy. This is a beautiful drive well worth all the praise it gets. It was a little cold and they were repaving, so lots of construction, so didn't do everything we could have, but if we go to Cody again we can do the loop and throw in Chief Joseph Hwy as well, which would be great. We ate lunch at a beautiful quiet alpine lake and watched the construction trucks and fall traffic drive by. 
Just after Cooke City we went through the NE entrance. We hoped to see some wolf, but only saw antelope and fisherman. South through Yellowstone stopping at Tower Falls, Artists Point for the Lower Yellowstone Falls and getting a camp spot at Grant's Village. I finally was able to figure out what they had done since we camped there in 1983 with Louisa. They had built a hotel on the meadow where we camped and moved the camping further out into the forest. We drove out the South Entrance and past the Tetons having gone through 4 of the 5 entrances in two days. It was a great trip even though it was a lot of driving. 
The next weekend we drove to Denver for a Rockies game. Russ had been talking about going to see the world series if Colorado got in it and I started realizing he had seen quite a few of the playoff teams this summer. We looked at who the Rockies were going to be playing and one of them was St Louis who was also a playoff contender. So we decided to go see them. In the end Russ had seen all the playoff teams this year except Minneapolis. Louisa went with us. We had a ticket for Jesse if he was home, but he decided to stay in Idaho Falls instead of spend the weekend with us. We drove from SLC Saturday in time for the game. We had a great time. It was so fun to be among the crowd and cheer and share in the excitement. It looked pretty close to sold out and there was a lot of energy in the crowd. Didn't matter, they lost anyway. Then we drove to Boulder and found a hotel. 
Next morning we drove through Rocky Mt National Park. This was an interesting contrast to Beartooth. This road goes higher, but in many ways they are the same, high altitude over-treeline tundra. Only it had snowed two feet over the week and it was windy and cold on top. The big attraction again were the elk at the lower elevations. We ate lunch at the Trail Ridge Grill in Grand Lake. I thought it was really grand :D. Anyway, reminded again that the Colorado used to be called the Grand River and is still as it empties into Grand Lake. We drove 40 home. It again was a lot of driving, but we had a great time and I was glad we went.Russ went the next day to pick Jesse up from Idaho Falls. It was kind of crazy since we were having dinner with TA friends from Australia. So I saw him first at the restaurant. He'd had a great summer and came home happy, which made me really happy as well. Russ got most of the stories on the three hour drive home, I was envious.
