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| Black bear in the meadow |
Another drive and more critters... plus a ride with a Park Service Ranger. NO arrests though. Our morning started innocently enough... breakfast, feed Cooper, and head out for some adventure.
When we rounded a spot that we had seen a bear a few days ago we spotted yet another bear. The same one? Maybe... but cool none the less. Bill did the dump and run...ie I jump out with camera and binoculars and he turns around and tries to park. Sometimes he manages to park close by and join me. Other times he just drives back and forth waiting for me.
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| Heading up towards my spot |
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| Off he goes |
Today it was difficult to find a spot to safely turn around so he was gone longer than usual. The rangers started clearing out the people who had parked in the middle of the road creating one of the infamous "bear jams". One asked me where my car was and laughed when I said my husband had dropped me off and left. He asked for me to move on uphill so that people would move past the area. I headed uphill and sat down on a nearby rock at the top to wait out Bill.
Unfortunately when he arrived there were still too many cars for me to get down off my rock and get to the car. Bill drove on past. After a bit another Ranger asked where my car was and said to hop in and he'd take me to the bottom of the hill to wait for Bill. A fun time was had by all once Bill arrived and the Rangers told him "some other wife had been left for 3 days". Haha...
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| Cinnamon black bear |
Even better than bear #1 was rounding another curve and seeing bear #2...a rare cinnamon black bear. At first we thought it was a young grizzly, but a guide that happened by said that it was actually a brown colored black bear... a new first. Two bear jams in less than an hour. Maybe we were heading for a "bear kind of day".
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| Storms roll past Hayden Valley |
Down by the River we watched the storms roll across the mountain tops as we ate lunch. While trying to get a few pictures of a bank of purple flowers a buffalo decided he wanted to head our way. He kept getting closer and closer until I decided he was getting too large in the camera lens.
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| Yucky nasty water...he liked it |
The crazy animal seemed to enjoy drinking the most nasty looking water in all of Yellowstone.
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| Bison after his swim |
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| Pea sized hail |
Once done with lunch we wandered on along the road until we ran into our very own hail storm...thankfully pea sized. The fun was trying to maneuver under a tree just in case the hail size got larger... no need to visit a repair shop with a damaged sunroof.
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| Dead bison...~100 yards off the roadway |
Things settled down so we could head back to camp to cook dinner when we came across a HUGE traffic jam. Since we're the curious sort we turned toward the crowd who were watching a dead bison and 'hoping' a bear would come back out of the woods. Our kind of crowd... the wolf and bear gazers will be out in force the rest of the week. Hopefully we'll be right there alongside them and see actual grizzlies at the carcass.
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| Tall grasses almost
hide the bear |
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| Cinnamon black bear checking out the traffic jam |
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| Bison swimming towards us |
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