Here is my usual Blog of things to do and website links to check out. Yellowstone National Park is the biggest attraction in my view. A little know place in the park is a natural hot tub called the Boiling River. It is located is about 2 miles north of the Mammoth Hot Springs on the road to the Northwest Entrance of the park. Here you will come to Wyoming/Montana border at a little stream that crosses the under the road. If you park on the east side and walk about ½ mile to the east along the trail you will come to an area that the hot springs flow into the river. People over time have set up rocks to separate the cold river water from the hot springs run off so you can sit and enjoy hot tub like water. So bring your swimsuits and a towel and tennis shoes or sandals to make the walk and enjoy. The large buffalo herds are usually located southeast of Mammoth Hot Springs (ask the ranger when you enter the park where the herds are). You can do this loop easily in a short day to include the Mammoth Hot Springs, swimming and the buffalo. Our kids really enjoyed the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone area the most with the hiking up and down to see the Upper and Lower Falls. They provide great locations to take family photos with gorgeous backgrounds. This area is more popular and will probably be a good day if you spend any time hiking to the different falls. It is amazing the power the water generates as you stand near and watch it rush by. For a longer day you can drive through Yellowstone to Grand Teton National Park, located to the south of Yellowstone. It is probably 100 plus miles from Big Sky. You have to drive through Yellowstone so it takes longer than being on a freeway, but the scenery is beautiful. We drove as far as Jenny Lake and hiked a flat 6 mile hike roundtrip around part of the lake to the south to get to “Hidden Falls” (questioning the name of it). This is a long day of driving. There is an Ice Cream shop/Pizza place at the marina near the Jenny Lake hike that was a nice reasonable place to have lunch. Then you can stop at Old Faithful on your way back to see it at sunset. Be sure to spend a little time in the Yellowstone Lodge at Old Faithful. It is a phenomenal building. A good link for Yellowstone is www.nps.gov/yell/ and click on the “In Depth” section In the area there is Quake Lake, the location of a large landslide due to an earthquake in 1959. It is located south and west of Big Sky just past Lake Hebgen, be sure to stop at all the story signs along the way. Then stop at the visitor center at the site of the landslide. If you continue west toward Ennis you can go to a historical mining town (Virginia). It is all laid out in its 1850’s glory. We usually continue the trip as a loop back through Bozeman. This day trip is approximately 200 miles. We haven’t spent a lot of time in Bozeman. It has shops and restaurants like most small college towns and a wonderful Natural History Museum if you are interested. If you belong to the Natural History or Science Museum in your area the membership probably has benefits in the one in Bozeman. At the condo, we have brochures for White Water Rafting, Horseback riding, dining out. The best link to the Big Sky area is bigskyresort.com and click on Activities (Summer at Big Sky) and then the Activities you are interested in. We used Jake’s Horses for our horseback riding. They were reasonable and let me warn you that three hours may be too much, you may want to go on a shorter timed trip (my buns are still aching!) We did not white water raft when we were there because it was late in August and the water is fairly tame. The chair lift scenic ride is nice and we hiked down from there (3 miles - All down hill!). That was a partial day. If you walk up the mountain via the Moose Tracks trail to the top of the Swift Current Chair you can ride back down for free! I have also hiked up to Lava Lake from the Lava Lake Trailhead located about 20 miles from the condo on your way to Bozeman. It is a 3 ½ mile hike up and a bit strenuous but worth the view at the lake for a nice lunch. For reasonable cost dining there is a restaurant south on the main highway about 6 miles (I think it is call the Corral) that serves burgers to steaks. Mr. Hummers’ or The Cabin has excellent food in the Mountain Village but are a little pricy. You will find links to all of this on our website at www.bighorn62.com as well as links for groceries. The best place in Big Sky to get groceries is in the Meadow Village at the County Market. It is not the cheapest but beats driving 60 miles into Bozeman. I hope you find this helpful and enjoy your stay in Big Sky. Mary Anderson Big Horn 62 LLC andersonbunch@att.net