Yellowstone

Last weekend we went up to Island Park and Yellowstone. It was a quick trip but was awesome, we saw so many animals. We got to the cabin at about 11pm on Friday night. The kids woke up at 6:20am asking if we could go see animals, so we got ready and drove to West Yellowstone. We were in the park by 8am.

After we entered the park we saw a small elk herd, the elk rut was going on and we heard an elk bugling for a while. We continued on and saw this buffalo. Kate loved it because he was right of the side of the road and she could see him.

There weren't very many animals in the morning, but we stopped at Old Faithful. We made it just in time to see the eruption.


After lunch we headed up north and that's when it all began. I had just been telling Erik the only way to see bears is to join the guys with their spotting scopes and watch and wait for something far away to step out of the trees and you get to watch it while trying to explain to your kids how to look through a spotting scope. Then we turned the corner to find a bunch of people with cameras and some people with huge cameras. Erik got out, while I was putting socks on the kids and he motioned to me hurry, it was a black bear. So he carried Cam and Kate without shoes, and this is what we saw...


Black Bear

and then...

Big horn sheep (must have been a young one he only had spikes)

and then...

Grizzly Bear

He was just of the side of the road. I was too nervous to stand our there, but Erik should have been more nervous. I was waiting for him to be in the park newspaper article about the idiot that got to close to the grizzly, but he did get some good pictures for the blog, so thanks Hun for risking your life.

and then on our way out...

Big bull elk and his girlfriends

(Erik told the kids the reason the elk were bugling is they were calling to all of their girlfriends)

It was marathon day, some of the roads were closed so it took longer. We ate pizza in West and headed home. About a total of 12hrs. gone from the cabin, the kids did great for the most part. It was all worth it to see all the animals. On our way home I noticed Erik slowing down, in the distance right in our lane you could see something standing there. The closer we got you could see it was a huge bull elk. He stood there for a minute staring at us then ran away. I am so glad Erik saw him or we would have been in big trouble. What a memorable trip!!!

You will now know where to find us the first of October every year...