Saturday, June 15, 2013 (Gardiner, MT)

We woke to sunshine and blue skies with warmer temps, too bad it wasn't like that yesterday when we were touring Yellowstone and taking so many pictures. 

We spent a relaxing morning, took Gracie for a little walk since yesterday, she was with us in the truck but couldn't get out much since they don't allow dogs on the trails.  After our walk with Gracie, we walked into town to explore and have lunch.  When we checked in the other day, the lady in the office told us that the Iron Horse Grill had good food so we were going to check it out.  The deck overlooks the river so that's where we chose to sit.  It was so beautiful, watching the river which is running high and is rather dirty looking because of the snow runoff, apparently it clears up later on.  We saw several rafts go by while we were eating.  We also chatted with two young fellows sitting near us, they were passing through the area and headed outside the park to install some seismic equipment.  They were college kids working on their grad program.  They were from the San Francisco Bay area.  It was pretty interesting hearing about their work and travels.   

After lunch we started walking through town and a parade was starting.  A rodeo was in town for the weekend and the parade was part of the festivities, so we stopped to watch.  I have never seen so much candy being thrown to the kids.  There was so much that it didn't even get all picked up.  Of course, there weren't all that many kids in this small town. 

This was interesting, it was a mule train, there were about 18 mules in the train and they were very well trained.  The rider had them go around in a big circle periodically which is what they are doing in this picture.  They are big animals and are actually very pretty. 

After the parade was over we walked to the edge of town where they have this big arch that is the entrance to Yellowstone park on the north end.  There was a bus load of Japanese that had just gotten there and were taking pictures.  It was interesting because I offered to take a picture for this couple and when I did, at the bottom of the screen some Japanese writing appeared, I wondered what it said???  Anyway, once they cleared out, we got our photo opportunity.

After our walk we went back and hung around the fiver for awhile and then decided to take a drive to Jardinne which was just up the road 5 miles.  I had read it was an old mining town.  Well just up the road a bit, the road turned to gravel and was pretty steep.  There was a campground along the way that we stopped and checked out, but it was way too rustic and small to ever bring the fiver.  Once we got to the top of the hill, we took this photo which is a shot of Gardiner where we were staying.  The photo doesn't really show how high we had climbed.  

Jardinne was very interesting, it was definitely rustic.  We wanted to stop and take a picture of this old house, but the gentleman was standing outside talking to a neighbor, let's just say he reminded me of an old miner you read about in a western novel.  You would have to be hardy to live in Jardinne, especially in the winter.  Even though it was only five miles from Gardiner, it was like it was in a different world.  As far as we could tell, there were only a few houses tucked in the hillside, there was no store, gas station or anything.  It was a beautiful drive though. 

After our drive was finished, we gave the truck a quick wash in the local car wash to get the gravel dust off; we are traveling tomorrow and want the truck to be nice and clean.  It was a nice short stop in Gardiner, MT but it is time to move on to the next stop.