Yellowstone

After the family reunion we headed up to Yellowstone to see what we could see. The kids were desperately hoping to see a bear. A few years ago my family hiked in to a campsite next to Grebe Lake. I was in charge of planning the hike and after making the reservations, I came across an article about ‘the Bouncing Bear’. Apparently, the year before a bear was jumping on the tents at the Grebe Lake campsites and had to be relocated. I had already made the reservations so I keep the details quiet and didn’t tell my family until we were already camping. That year we didn’t have any problems with a bear jumping on the tents, though we did have a buffalo settle down for a midmorning nap right in front of my brother’s tent so we couldn’t break camp for a long time. Anyways, the story of the “Bouncing Bear’ has come up a few times with the kids – for some reason they really like it. When we were planning our Yellowstone trip this year the first thing that came to their minds was this story about the bear, so of course they really, really wanted to see one.

Right away we saw the bald eagles that nest along the road. We saw some eagles flying around and some sitting on their nest. Then we saw buffalo. They were everywhere! Usually in small groups, so no big herds this time around. There were elk everywhere too. At first we saw doe elk but after a while we saw some bull elk as well. As we drove along we came to a slow spot. Anyone who has been to Yellowstone knows that anytime there are some slower cars it is because there is some kind of animal that the people are looking at. This particular slow spot was for a coyote. The coyote was walking along the road and crossing over and then back and in general causing traffic mayhem.

After a while we came to another slow spot and everyone was climbing out of there cars to see what was going on. So of course, we pull over too and everyone climbs out. We walk over to the crowd and we see 2 bull elk browsing in the trees next to the road! The biggest elk with the biggest racks I have ever seen! The next slow spot we come to we pull over and hop out again. We start up the road and after a few seconds are met be people running towards us saying to get the kids in the cars because there’s a bear by the road! So we hustle back to the car and flip a U-turn so that we can hopefully see this bear beside the road. Unfortunately, we were too slow and the bear had already crossed the road by the time we got to the right spot. Lucky for us, a short time later we came upon a cute little bear sitting in a meadow by the road. He was calmly munching on the grasses and ignoring the spectators as we took pictures of him. What a nice bear. The kids were ecstatic! The trip was a success !

The next day we went for a hike to Storm Point on Yellowstone Lake. Along the trail we saw lots of buffalo hair. Then we saw where some buffalo had laid down for a while and rubbed off a whole lot of their winter hair. At this point I started to get a bit concerned that maybe we would come upon a buffalo. Luckily, we didn’t; but when we finished the trail loop and were back where we started we saw 4 buffalo next to the trail. They weren’t there when we started so somehow they must have circled around us as we approached their nap spot. In the picture you can see some dark bumps on the other side of the pond - those bumps are the buffalos. For some reason, I didn't want the kids getting too close and since I wanted Natalia in the picture I didn't get a close-up of the buffalo. Too bad.

After all this excitement seeing the animals we headed over to Old Faithful. Oh yeah, we also saw some wolves. They were pretty far away and we could only see them well with binoculars. And we saw a buffalo carcass, or at least we saw the birds feeding on it through a scope the rangers set up. So lots of animals and ending with Old Faithful - definitely a good trip. Here's a picture of Sean, Kyle (cousin), Brandon, and Natalia wearing coon skin hats in the visitor's center. And then Jamie, Alauna, and Natalia in front of Old Faithful.