Yellowstone (6/23/2007

Today we got the east side of the lower loop. I had heard of bear jams before but not moose jams. Believe me this was a jam. There were cars every where on the side of the road in the middle of the road and some places were there wasn't a road. People walking every where including the middle of the road. Rangers trying to keep the traffic moving had a rough time.

Cow Moose and Calf. The animals in the park are so use to people that they don't even pay any attention to them. I'll bet they think you people are crazy I wouldn't spend my time watching you. :-)

The upper Falls of the Yellowstone.

The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone.

They have some really nice places to view things from in the park. At the busy parking areas they usually have at least a port-a-potty and well made trails and boardwalks when needed.

Here is an example of the board walks and parking area at the Mud Volcano pull off. Notice the RVs. I was amazed at the number of people who drive there RVs in the park and I mean large ones. There were also a lot of rented RVs. I think there are six campgrounds in the park, only one has hookups and it cost $44.00 a night and is full until the end of July. It is privately run. The other ones were full most of the time when we drove past. They are $20.00 a night unless you have the golden age pass, then it is $10.00 a night which I consider enough to just be allowed to park your RV.

The Green Dragon Calderon. It did sound like I think a dragon would sound. But I don't think even a dragon would smell that bad only roughten eggs.

The Mud Volcano. That is just percolating mud.

This was a Saturday and apparently the animals knew it. There were more animals out today than we had seen all week. I guess they are trained to come out when the tourist are the heaviest on week ends. :-) The first animal we saw was a grey wolf off in the meadow. Peggy was able to get some video of him but I didn't even try with my small telephoto Len. Next was the moose in the picture above. Further down the road we saw a large white bird standing near the creek. Again Peggy was able to get some video but I didn't get any stills. We thought it might be another Sandhill Crane but it turned out to be a Wood Stork. Then we really did run into a bear jam. We had to park so far away and the grizzly was even further away so I didn't even try to get any pictures. Again Peggy was able to get some videos of him. So glad we have the video camera. There were also some Buffalo in the area but when the grizzly got near them they took off running across the road and nearly gave the ranger a heart attack trying to be sure every one was out of the way. While Peggy was off taking the videos of the bear I was just standing by the car waiting. There were other cars all around and one fellow had a pair of binoculars, I have a pair also but Peggy had them with her, he was just scanning the terrain when he spotted a bald eagle sitting on a snag near the creek. Thankfully he let me look. Two minutes later he said there are two more on a log near the creek. Again fortunately he let me look. Unfortunately my little telephoto wasn't strong enough. But at least I did get to see them.
So all though I didn't get the pictures I would have liked I did get to see some animals I had never seen before and it is thrilling. I had seen a grizzly and a bald eagle before in Alaska but had never seen a wolf or a stork before and even if you have seen them before it is still awesome.