Yellowstone At Last...

We made it to Yellowstone! We pulled in Friday night just around dusk. I can’t believe how much snow is left here. Susan was right! I have no idea who this lady is, but I thought the car provided a good perspective to help see the amount of snow.“Hard-sided units only. No sleeping on ground or in tents. Area frequented by bears.” Thus read our campground’s welcome sign. Not very welcoming if your name is Jonas and you’ve been having nightmares about bear attacks fairly regularly for the past two years. Surprisingly, it was Lena who showed up at our bedside having been wakened from her sleep by images of scary bears in her dreams.

For brunch the next day (we’ve been doing two main meals; a big breakfast then a dinner, with snacks in between as needed) we parked next to the gorgeous Snake River. The kids played on the shore while I cooked eggs and biscuits inside the camper and Harold cooked bacon on the Coleman stove outside the camper. Bellies full, we drove around exploring for several hours. The first large animals we saw were a little group of buffalo. Their docile behavior belied the many signs we’ve been seeing, warning us not to get too close as hundreds have been gored when they try to get too up-close-and-personal with the bison. It was indeed difficult not to get up-close-and-personal with this mommy bison and her baby. We passed lots of herds of elk, and some singletons, as well, driving past a few who seemed to be standing on the side of the road, waiting for us to pass to let us see what fine specimens of their species they were. The ones we came closest to had beautiful velvet on their spring antlers. If only we could reach out and feel them! A little further down the road, we came upon a group of about 25 cars parked precariously along the side of the road. Harold said that usually means there’s a bear. Sure enough, a momma grizzly and her cubs were ambling along the ridge of the mountain in front of us. They were far enough away that we could only see them as dots, in fact, in the picture I took, they appear more like gorillas than bears.

Without a powerful enough scope to see the grizzly family clearly, we decided to move on down the road. Twice again that day, we came to large groups of parked cars and both times we had the good fortune to see bears. Black bears both times. Up-close-and-personal both times. In fact, so close that Rangers with loaded guns were posted every so many feet around the area ready to take care of business if necessary. We could’ve gone home after the bears and our trip would’ve been perfectly complete. But God had more for us to see. As we drove through a seemingly lifeless stretch of road, we rounded a curve and a wily coyote bounded across the road right in front of us, then had the grace to stay close right beside us on the roadside long enough for us to get a couple shots of him. William had said when we were driving into Yellowstone that he had two things he wanted to see, a bear and a coyote. Well, I guess God decided to humor him. Gardiner, Montana is just right outside Yellowstone’s north gate. We aren’t going to travel through Montana, as we’re leaving through the east gate, near Cody, Wyoming (hope I’ll get to take Cody’s picture in Cody), so we decided to drive on into Gardiner so the kids can say they’ve been in Montana. We spent just a little while there, long enough to get gas and drive around a bit.

Coming back into Yellowstone, we made a quick stop at Mammoth Hot Springs. This cute picture Harold took of Jared made my day. We returned to our campsite around midnight, I cooked a VERY late dinner of spaghetti, corn, garlic bread and salad, then we went to bed—very tired, but very happy campers. I think Lena was too tired to dream of bears tonight. Besides, if she did, they’d have had to have been friendly. She decided that bears might not be so villainous after all based on the two sweet specimens we had the pleasure to meet on this fine day.