I know I'm behind and have a few more interesting topics to blog about, but I figured I would start with the easiest.
Michael and I have started this tradition of going to Yellowstone the first week it's open. Now only some of the park is open and there is still a lot of snow. So why do we go in the middle of April when it's gross and cold out? Well for one there are so many people in the summer months that you can't really enjoy the park. In April, not a problem. Second, it's free to get into the park the first week it is open. Yea, FREE and that's what we like about it. And lastly there's this whole thing about seeing wild animals and stuff. We figure that with less people to scare all the wildlife away, more snow on the ground to keep them from going up to the mountains, and less people to obstruct our view of a wild animal that we have a much better shot of seeing anything right at the beginning than any other time. Did I mention there's less people there? Yea, we like that. Last year on April 19 I went to the park for the first time. It was awesome. We woke up at 5 and were planning on being inside the park by 7. Then Brenda decided she was going to get a flat tire on her way to scoop dirt. This scooping dirt day was important to her more than any other day. She was going to Burley for an overnight work trip to scoop dirt there. She was going to get paid a lot and stay in a hotel for free and have food paid for. So yea, kind of a big deal. Michael was generous enough to take her to work
all the way in Idaho Falls (not super far, but because it's Brenda...), come back and get me so we could change the tire on her car and drive it back to our place in Rigby. I have never seen so much change in the spare tire before in my life, just for the record. After all that fun, we got to the park at about 8 or so. We saw a ton of buffalo, elk and big horn sheep. We also saw a few pronghorns, bald eagles, coyotes, wolves, 6 bears, osprey, and deer. So here's some of the things we saw.
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| In the field behind us are tons of buffalo, 3 wolves, a coyote, and trees. |
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| Old Faithful, we just happened to pull in the parking lot right as it's going off! |
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| Officially known as the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone |
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| Icebox canyon |
The second time we went to Yellowstone was in October I think.... There were some parts of the park that had been closed off during our April visit due to snow, so we took the liberty of visiting again with our main focus being on those few parts. So here's what we saw.
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| Bugle Bugle! |
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| A Wolf! |
Round 2 of our annual tradition was quite the trip. We went on April 16 and invited Christopher and Laura. Michael had taken a feel trip with his Natural Disasters class to West Yellowstone a week before so he was able to serve as a tour guide for us. On our drive we went through Island Park, and saw a moose. We took a scenic route (which added about and hour) to see Quake Lake. There was an earthquake that caused the side of a mountain to slide and cover a river. This blocked the river and made a lake. Unfortunately there were a bunch of campsites nearby and about 30 fatalities. :( In other news.... We saw 5 more moose taking that route than just going straight. After we got to West Yellowstone (the town just outside the park), we stopped at McDonnald's and had a marvelous feast for a breakfast.
On a side note, we were really afraid we weren't going to be able to go to Yellowstone this time. First of all, the government is stupid and apparently super good at procrastinating. So if the budget didn't get passed, the park didn't open. Thank goodness they did something with their quarter of a million dollar paychecks and figured it out. To add to that, it snowed almost every day for a week before we went. Stupid Idaho/Wyoming/Montana weather. But it opened and we got in!
