Sun and Snow in the Country’s First National Park

Cory Lancaster July 21, 2017
Richard Libby wear Stetson cap and pullover, standing next to Firehole Falls sign.
Wendy and Richard Libby stand in light snowfall at the Continental Divide sign in Yellowstone National Park
Snow blanketed Yellowstone National Park when Wendy and Richard Libby visited in May, including this stop at the Continental Divide, the ridge in western North America where water drains westward toward the Pacific Ocean or eastward toward the Atlantic Ocean.

The weather in DeLand was a hot and sunny 90 degrees on May 26. But 2,300 miles away in Yellowstone National Park, snow was falling.

Yellowstone is known for temperature swings in May, with snow on some days and others reaching a pleasant 60 degrees. It’s a good time to visit, the travel sites say, to avoid the summertime crowds at the country’s first national park, which covers 2.2 million acres, most of it in Wyoming.

“My husband had been there. I hadn’t. He said this is a really beautiful place. We should do this,” said Stetson University President Wendy B. Libby. “It was really a lot of fun. We stayed at the Old Faithful Inn, which is a wonderful example of rustic ‘Parkitechture,’ built from lodge pole pine in the early 1900s.”

Two days after the snow, her husband Richard poses on a sunny day at Firehole Falls, wearing a Stetson University cap and pullover. Behind him is the 40-foot waterfall along the scenic Firehole Canyon Drive through the park.

During their 12-day trip, the couple also stayed at a ranch in Ennis, Montana, owned by Stetson alum Leland Phillips, B.S. in Business, ’59, a former president of the Alumni Association. Then, the Libbys were off to Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Richard Libby wear Stetson cap and pullover, standing next to Firehole Falls sign.
Richard Libby shows his Hatter pride during a stop at Firehole Falls in Yellowstone National Park.

In all, they enjoyed a three-week break, leaving directly after Commencement on May 13 for their annual weeklong fishing trip with friends in the Florida Keys. Wendy Libby said she prefers taking summer trips all at once. 

“That way my summer doesn’t get bogged up,” she explained. “We’ve been away, we’ve done it, come back, head’s clear.”

 

 

 

 

 

Send Us Your Travel Photos: #HatterTravels

Hatters love to travel – around the globe and closer to home. Send us your travel photos with a Stetson Hatters logo for our #HatterTravels photo album. Be sure to send at least 300 dpi to [email protected] and include: #HatterTravels in the subject line, your name, the degree and year you graduated from Stetson, your phone number, when and where the photo was taken, and full names and other information about others in the photo.

-Cory Lancaster