Day 12

Montana Saga- Day 12

Alan writes:

OK, I’m just going to begin with two old examples.  The first is Sergeant Joe Friday in Dragnet.  He is famous for the saying, “Just the facts ma’am.”  That’s what I’m giving you today.  No frills, no editorializing.  We left the 320 Ranch headed for Yellowstone.  About 20 minutes on the road and we saw our first “clear” moose- a beautiful bull in a small copse of trees and alders.  Once we entered Yellowstone we saw our first bison bull also within about 20 minutes.  Later we saw a cool small herd of elk with numerous cows and babies but also one awesome bull.  During the trip through the park we ran into three or four delays for road repair.  During one of these we saw a coyote who was so focused on whatever prey he was looking for that he barely noticed us.  We finished Yellowstone late in the day and headed straight through a dark Teton National Park, complete with elk in the road for the second time during our trip.  We arrived at our hotel (a neat place Mimi got for us in Teton Village) late in the night having traveled down a nine mile road with overhanging trees, encroaching bushes and lapping water from a beaver-dammed stream and, though we personally avoided this, an angry grizzly sow with cubs that would charge cars.

I said two old examples.  The second is old S&H Green stamps.  You used to get S&H stamps every time you went through a check out line at the local supermarket.  When you filled up your book you could then redeem them for something valuable, e.g.-knives, flatware, etc.  Today we went a long way toward filling up our book.  We got the coveted Moose stamp, the elusive Elk stamp, the massive Bison stamp and the seldom-seen Coyote stamp.  All that remains is the Mountain Lion, Lynx, Wolverine and Grizzly bear stamps and we are done, finito!

Mimi says:

What can I say? What an awesome ANIMAL day! I’m a happy camper.

Coyote

Another Coyote!

Beautiful sunset.

Elk

Buffalo

Buffalo patty ;o/

Thank goodness for hand sanitizer!

Geothermic vents at Yellowstone

More buffalo.

This marmot was up so high that our zoom lens almost didn't pick him up!  Alan's zoom eye spotted him.

Find the chipmunk in this picture.

We had this picnic lunch (snack) in the car while we watched this industrious little squirrel run back and forth across the street picking up nuts. He must have run 10 miles while we watched him! Really cute. He had a fun pattern where he would run across the street,  hop up on a log,  look around & scratch,  jump down & run the length of a fallen tree,  pick up a nut and follow his same path in reverse...then start over again.

Cute, huh!

Not snow, SALT!

More elk!