West Thumb Geyser Basin, Natural Bridge....

On our way to places we have planned, we often come across tantalizing little signs promising a sight we have not seen in any of the literature we have accumulated. Today was no exception.  We saw a sign saying Kessler Falls and we had to investigate!  What a beautiful falls!!

 Then it was on to West Thumb Geyser Basin which is on the south shore of the very large Yellowstone Lake

The pools here at West Thumb had some of the clearest waters we'd seen!

 After leaving West Thumb, we headed around the lake to the north end.  This is a view of the West Thumb area from across the lake....

Here is the Yellowstone Marina

 We took off from the marina on the Natural Bridge Trl.  and look what we saw coming towards us!  This is getting to be a regular thing!:)

 The "bridge" is very pretty and unique for Yellowstone

 Leaving the marina after the hike, we headed north which took us through Hayden Valley once again. We were hoping to see the bison and maybe a pair of Trumpeter Swans we had heard were in the area.

We saw this nice volcano fumerole....

 And this cute duck family......

 And then we saw bison on the left side of the road.......

And more on the right side of the road looking like they were going to cross the road.....

Then as we passed the bison, I looked over to the right thing a lone bison was wandering away from the herd and this is what I saw......a grizzly!  That was our first bear and very exciting!

If that was not enough, just a bit further on we saw big white birds on Alum Creek and sure enough when we got close it turned out to be 2 pairs of Trumpeter Swans....so beautiful!!

When we looked back to where the bison were, we could see the traffic stopped because they were crossing the road and causing quite the backup!;)  What another great day!