We slept in to recover from the flight and got a late breakfast at the Lake Hotel.

After breakfast, we stopped at the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center to get our fishing permits. We walked out to the lake, but did not see the no fishing signs that the clerk at the Hamilton Store had warned us about. Just outside the Visitor Center was a large squirrel in a pine tree. It threw pine cones down on us and chattered a lot. Near the parking lot, there was some kind of ground squirrel that didn’t have a tail. It looked sort of like a rabbit when it ran. We later identified it as a pika. There were also about 4 or 5 ravens flying around.

As we drove along the Yellowstone River, we saw lots of Canada geese and various species of ducks everywhere. We stopped at the Le Hardy Rapids and walked down to the river. This is a good area to watch the trout migration in late June/early July. Supposedly, the bears like it, too. Just below the Le Hardy rapids, we saw many goldeneyes. There were also three large birds flying overhead. They could have been pelicans, but we weren’t sure. They did not fly like geese or swans.