Well, we packed up our pack pony and left Cody, WY in our dust and headed west. Yellowstone country was the destination, stopped at the Buffalo Bill Dam and Resevior just west of Cody, and then 50 miles later, we were at the west gate. Not 10 miles into the park, we came across about 50 cars on each side of a 2 lane, leaving one lane to traffic. Seeing a large group of people looking into the woods gave us cause to believe that they saw something. As we walked up and looked, nothing stood out, asking, a polite english lad noted that just past the burnt tree trunks near the light colored barkless tree, lay a slumbering grizzly bear, sure enough, you can see his bear butt, sticking out past the tree trunk. They said a while back he was standing, The ranger would not let Mike go poke the grizz with a stick, so this is the only picture we have of this one.


After our first Grizzly encounter we set our sites on one of the short hikes we had planned. Over on the west side of Yellowstone Lake, there is a trail called Storm Point. From the moment we arrived here there was also a commotion, it seems three bison we laying about in the meadow. So we started our hike, Melissa took about 140 pics today, numerous of these bison as we had to wander past to get to the trail.

In this picture above, we had to take a slight detour through the woods because this bison was lying right on the trail, so we skirted it by about 30'. When we got through the 2 mile hike, the other 3 were milling about near our car, another detour to keep from getting too close.

The pic on the right is later in the day, we came across a large herd, 50+ who were making their way accross the road, stopping traffic. I got a little video (very little) of these guys as we drove past, more video of the steering wheel and dash than bison. I have to master this new cam.

Somewhere between the hike and those bison, we came accross these elk just walking up to settle in for a mid day rest. Need to show this to Scott so he knows what they look like.

Pretty magnificent animals !

We headed over north of Old Faithful to Midway Geyser Basin and found these thermal ponds.
Huge amounts of steaming water, bubbling out of the ground, steam rising everywhere, actual hot water rapids flowing into Firehole River . Beautiful colors; looks like Carribean water in a Finnish Sauna.

Quite windy here, lots of hats lying about in the areas around the ponds, but they won't let you walk on the ground there due to potential for weak structure, need to stay on the board walks. Melissa was holding on to her new Big Horn Mountain hat pretty well.

Last sighting of the day, was of these two grizzly bears climing this tree. It seems if there is a ranger standing next to the road, then there are grizzly's in the near area, both sightings we had today had rangers at them, none where the bison, elk and mule deer were. The top of the tree is the baby, and Melissa and I are unsure if the other one is the mother or a yearling. Neat stuff

Tonight we sleep in Gardiner, MT. I want to go out and see the stars before I close my eyes.

Sleep tight. I know Melissa and I will. This vacation stuff is exhausting !