Yellowstone

We got off to our earliest start to date – somewhere neighborhood of 0730 hours. As we entered the park, there was a loud cry from Joseph, “I see a Bison!” Little did we know that we would see another 141 during our tour. We decided to take the lower loop, head to the west and come back around full circle. All along the way, we kept track of all the animals we saw.

We stopped almost immediately to see one of the canyons and were met with an onslaught of mosquitoes. Not just one, but about 4000. We retreated to our car, only to find about 576 inside the truck. We knew we needed something quick, so we stopped at a store, where Suzi met someone from Marysville, CA (of all places). Suzi also invested in a good pair of binoculars, which paid off dearly later in the trip.

Next - Old Faithful. After sitting and watching her (?) for about 20 minutes, Courtney and I walked over to a park ranger, where I threw Courtney under the bus. "Yeah, my daughter wants to know when the next show is." I learned that they call it "predictions". We had about 45-60 minutes before the next show. We started walking around and met another family from CA (see Suzi's post). As we made our way back and waited for Faithful, she started to push out some water (maybe about 10 feet high) and then stopped. I wondered if that was it - Suzi kept reminding me that Faithful would shoot the water over 100'. As I stood up to go do something else, there she blew. Pretty spectacular.

Then off the west side to a bear/wolf rescue place we heard about. The place was pretty cool and we learned some things (especially about wolves). Then we experienced a God-thing. As we headed out the west side, there were two major back-ups coming into the park. One for a set of bison that were near the road and the other for the bald eagles. I prepared myself for the worst, as I knew we would head back that direction when we were done checking out the bears. As we came back, there was not a lick of traffic. We were able to see the bald eagles (you can't get out of the car or stop, but you could definitely see them perched in their tree). The bison were there and we got a good show from them.

We headed to Canyon Village where we saw a water fall that put all others to shame. We drove over to artist point and were taken back by all of the colors. We were able to make it back to the truck before the rain fell. As we drove to around the rest of Yellowstone, we got a natural car wash and then the rain stopped. All very cool.

Lastly, we saw a herd of bison which was breath-taking. Even better, there was a bison up on the top of a hill, standing as if he were the guard of the herd. We made our way back to Yellowstone lake and back to the trailer - one of the most memorable 12 hours I ever spent.