Yellowstone Parties

This has been a summer full of changes. Most of the summer our internet speed has been so slow we could not upload pictures.  I'm going to use this as an intro to a number of posts.

June 28-29

Part III:   Picnics and Gatherings

 Mary Beth Schwatz had planned a party to celebrate the birthday of George Marler, a great naturalist and geologist in Yellowstone's past.  We drove in to the Lower Ham Store.  Of course, the sky looked like rain and many folk were out at Grand.  We decided to have lunch instead and soon friends started to appear. The waiter started with four people, it grew to eight and then as we were talking about missing the Hoppe's and the Goldbergs, who should appear but Roz.  The poor waiter just kept adding the slips to the cook!

 Grand finally went (two bursts!) and it was time for desert and a birthday cheer to George!

It was so great to see our old friends.  We had such a magical time meeting year after year as our kids grew.  Its actually harder now to make arrangements to meet.  Jan and Udo now live in West Yellowstone and Mary Beth has her West Yellowstone place.  The trip for us seems longer and harder each time we make it.  But my, do we like our Yellowstone friends. 

Our gazer friend, Bob Berger died this past winter.  Death does bring changes.  We decided to make a celebration of his life at Yellowstone with a Berger-style picnic. We had announced it to various friends and planned it for the Sunday, the 29th.  While we were certainly missing several people, it was so nice to have a good day to sit and talk and share the past and the present with each other.

The picnic ended with a great eruption of Beehive!

And what do old Geyser Gazer Friends do at the end of a picnic?  Why go look at geysers of course!

Then it was time to go to New Mexico…Bye, bye Yellowstone