Our Backyard

Yellowstone National Park—yep, to us it’s our backyard, a mere 113 miles from our door to the north entrance of one of the most spectacular, spirit restoring places you will ever visit.  And on this fine, Indian summer day in late October, the park wasn’t full of those “other” folks who come to visit our backyard in summer—a very good day for a drive.  Our usual route is in through the north entrance and out to the Lamar Valley.  The sun was so bright my photos suffered as a result—but when we arrived home, there were some surprises when I began working with all the photos in Picasa.

Our first animal sighting was a chipmunk moving way too fast to pose for a photo.  The next group we saw were enjoying a late morning breakfast:

See anything in this photo??  I didn’t when snapping it—guess I should have been paying more attention to the scenery instead of composing photos!!!

Cropped even more—that’s looks surprisingly like a bear to me!!

We ate our lunch looking out over the Lamar Valley and talking about how lucky we were to have “this” in our backyard.  Michael and I both avoid YNP in the summer but this is twice now that we’ve visited the park in late October, early November—spectacular!!!  The park probably received the same snowstorms we did but as on our place, most of the snow has melted. 

On to the buffalo—many, many buffalo.  This guy was taking a bath—a dirt bath.  It’s a short video.

On the way back out of the park we ran into the usual and customary YNP traffic jam--and around the corner we ran into these guys—get outta my way!!

But the most exciting sighting (since I didn’t see the first bear today) was a grizzly—yep, my second one to ever see and Michael’s probably fifth.  We came upon a bunch of cars parked on the side of the road, in the middle of the road—more cars than we had seen all day—most be something cool—yep, it was.  The grizzly was along the edge of a river in the mud and never raised his head, he must have been eating something good getting ready to hibernate.  He was also some distance from us—so the photo isn’t the best.

And last but not least were the Mammoth Hot Springs elk:

“And if you don’t stop that little black thing from growling at me, I am going to come over there and give her what for!”

When I married Michael we used to go to YNP every year for my early September birthday.  My family loved to come to Montana for my birthday, go to YNP and hear the elk bugle.  There would be HUGE bull elk all over Mammoth, bugling, chasing the girls and each other.  Rangers would be everywhere keeping the people away from the elk.  In the last few years it doesn’t seem as if we are seeing as many elk in the fall. 

Goodbye YNP, see you next year.Only in Gardiner, MT, two elk visiting the USPS!

I convinced Michael we needed to end our spectacular day with dinner at the Rib and Chop House.  My spirit is revived, I’ve had my YNP fix for the year, life is very good!