We got off to a late start this morning and there was quite a line to get thru the entrance station. It was backed up all the way into the town. If you are going to hit Yellowstone in the summer, it appears you want to get there before 9 am. The ride from the entrance station follows the Madison river for most of the 16 or so miles to Madison. There are lots of fly fishermen in their waders out there, but I haven’t seen any two that would be able to see the other. Idyllic for a fisherman! I wonder if my brother does any fly fishing? This place looks like a fisherman’s paradise.
About 14 miles into the park you come to a tee intersection, to the right is Ole Faithful and to the left was yet unexplored. We were heading to Mammoth Hot Springs and beyond for the afternoon. The road to Norris was blocked off, so we passed that and turned for the hot springs. About halfway there there was a flagman and a very long wait for the cars heading southbound. Lots of road construction going on this route. Once the southbound cars were past us, we got to go and probably drove 10 miles of dirt and broken-up one-lane road, passing lots of earth movers of all description along the way. Quite a jostling ride from Kathy’s POV.
We finally got into Mammoth and found a parking spot at a huge green lawn area with a few picnic tables under some trees. The pups were in heaven and it was pretty nice for us too. Across the busy road was a restaurant with ice cream. We munched on our picnic lunch and then Kathy made her way over to the ice cream shop and since it was lunch time, there was about 50 people in line to get a table. After a bit she noticed that ice cream wasn’t on the menu and saw a sign in the corner of the room listing it. No line at all! It was heaven to have ice cream under those trees.
Once we were ready to go, we headed out toward Tower-Roosevelt. I had no idea what that was, but it looked like we could loop back toward our campground, so we were off! Quite a scenic road and not a bit of construction to spoil it. I have never been to a place with so many fast moving rivers. Yellowstone should be called waterworld or something like that. Maybe I have just lived in the desert of San Diego so long, running fresh water seems odd to me. It seems like all roads have a river or a huge creek running beside them. 
Lots of waterfalls and rapids. But we never saw a raft or kayak on any of them. Even the huge Yellowstone Lake, we only saw one boat. If this was San Diego, there would be thousands of boats on that lake.
This was the waterfall near Roosevelt, It turned out to be a Lodge. After that we started climbing and when we were above the treeline the views were spectacular. You could see forever.. or maybe even further. 
Once thru the pass, we stopped at Canyon Village. There are lots of these islands of civilization in the park: stores, shops, visitor centers, gas, and even medical clinics.
After that we headed back toward West Yellowstone. It was a long day.