Funny weather here in Yellowstone. Highs in the 70s and 80s, but lows the last two nights in the 20s. Frozen hose last night. Who thinks about unhooking the water hose at night when it’s 70 or 80 degrees during the day? Oh well. We had plenty of fresh water in the tank to hold us over until the sun hit the hose and thawed it out.
It’s not very high here: 6,500 feet. We’re right next to the Continental Divide, though. It’s only at 7,000 feet here. That seems so odd. You have to go to 12,000 feet to cross the divide in Colorado. That’s a mile higher.
Took a day-trip in the jeep. A five state day: Montana, Idaho, Montana, Idaho, Montana. We’re in Montana. Straight west of here is Idaho. Get to the other side of Henry’s Lake in Idaho, and you cross back into Montana on a fifty mile long dirt road headed due west. Montana hangs down into Idaho right there. Halfway through that dirt road, in the Centennial Valley, is Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, perhaps the most remote wildlife refuge in the country, home of the rare trumpeter swan. We were hoping to see one or two. We got 45! Forty-five trumpeter swans. That was a great surprise. We also got pelicans, ducks, grebes, hawks, bald eagles, sandhill cranes, coots, gulls, kingfishers, three kinds of woodpeckers, flycatchers, swallows, magpies, nutcrackers, nuthatches, robins, bluebirds, waxwings, warbling vireos, warblers, spotted towhee, and sparrows. We looked hard for the MacGillivray’s warbler, a life bird for us, but didn’t get him. No problem. We got forty-five trumpeter swans!
