The Day After

Lamar Valley bison

Well after our 10 miler  yesterday we took it easy.  We kind of needed to...at least one of us was walking the proper way down the hill from our tent.  Cooper was 100% feeling great after his day of relaxation at the Farm Spa.   Off we headed to see what animals we could discover wandering around Yellowstone.

From our past visits we know exactly where to head to watch the buffalo....Lamar Valley.  Wide open vistas, a river running through it and lots of bison.  Cooper has been fascinated by these huge animals.  He doesn't quite know what to do, but he loves looking out the window at them.  Surprisingly he has never uttered a sound while watching any of the animals. 

Male pronghorn

Pronghorn

We sat and watched the bison for a bit when we noticed a small herd of pronghorn.  These are our favorites...beautiful animals.  After awhile we were fortunate to see the male chase the female.  These animals are FAST.  The rest of the herd watched as these two tore around every other living creature. 

After a bit things settled back down until suddenly another male was spotted.  These 2 males took off across the valley...the original one chasing the interloper off.  We followed them with the binoculars until we lost them in the dust.   Amazing to watch the male make his way back...panting...only to find that his little pack of females had wandered off up the hill.

Chase is ON

Chase continues

Wolf pack taking a snooze

Since it was getting late we decided to head back to camp to get some dinner...or thought that was what we would be doing.  We met a couple originally from Virginia...now living in Colorado.  They mentioned hearing about a couple of dead buffalo carcasses close to the road which had attracted the attention of wolves and bears.  Guess what we discovered?  On our way back to camp we passed by a pretty sizable group of people watching a pack of wolves snoozing in the late day sunshine.

We counted 6...gray, brown, and 4 black.  It was while watching the wolves that we decided that we really needed to get a spotting scope.  The binoculars are pretty good, but we wanted something a bit better.  Sunday morning we headed to Bozeman in search of a spotting scope...perfect thing for our anniversary.

The last thing we spotted was a motorcycle dude and his best bud...in the side car.   Wonder if Cooper would ride as calmly as this guy did?

Dude and his pal