Friday, July 23

It’s the morning of our last full day in Yellowstone and we plan to make the most of it! We get up at six fifteen and are in the car by seven, cruising Hayden Valley again. Once again there are mule deer welcoming the new day, two yearlings and a six-point buck. The young ones seem to be best buds, but take flight when a man walks too close to them along the path from the workers’ dorm.

We’ll be doing the Mud Volcano guided tour later, but I just can’t resist the light coming through the rising steam!

Check out the bison herd! The males are starting to rut and boy are they putting on a show! We pull off and watch for a long time! It is a stitch to watch the young calves pretend that they, too, are all that and a bag of chips! We go down the road looking for other critters and turn around to come back, only to find they are still entertaining!

The males are really full of themselves. They keep crossing the road, stopping in the middle and challenging anyone to make them move. Their other favorite sport is to walk down the middle of the road! I just went back and looked at the pictures and counted thirty-four of the crossing the road and three that walked past, not in front of, but past our car today! WoW!

While watching the bison duke it out, and occasionally score, I notice something moving in the meadow to their right. It turns out to be a gray wolf! Boy are we excited! He’s right out there in the middle of the day! This is all taking place at Elk Antler Creek – I only know because I happened to catch the sign in a couple of the photos!

We’re getting hungry and agree to come back home and get some breakfast. Hot oatmeal will help warm us up and more coffee is definitely in order! Then it is back out to see the Mud Volcanoes. But first, there is another stop for a bison who is parading down the middle of the road. They pass so darn close to our car when they do this! I wonder how we’ll explain the scratches to the Hertz people! Luckily, so far they have given us about a one foot berth!

We know we’re at the mud volcanoes by the smell as well as the steam! We first stop at the Sulfur Caldron and get caught up in catching the sporadic mud explosions!

Before we can get back down the road to the entrance to the rest of the guided tour, there is another bison walking toward us down the middle of the road! Once he’s past we can turn into the parking lot and begin the hike. It is about two-thirds of a mile and we follow the recommendation of going clockwise so we don’t have to go up the steepest parts, but rather can come down them.

These hydrothermal features are a result of the magma which still underlies this vast and still active volcano. There are fumeroles and mud pits and lots of steam and stink. They save the best for last by bringing us finally to the Dragon’s Mouth Spring. You can see the dragon’s breath and hear his beastly roar! Quite a dramatic show!

We pull out of the parking lot and wouldn’t you know it – there’s another bison walking toward our car! I almost don’t even take pictures! Almost! We’re heading home once again to get some lunch and download our photos and charge our batteries, literally and figuratively! And there are cars pulled over. There is a lovely ten-point mule deer buck enjoying his moment in the spotlight!

Back at the cabin we have PB and Js for lunch and try out the Keurig coffee maker that comes with our room. They had left us two regular coffees, two decafs and two green teas for the first day and since we had put those away to make some space, they have replenished our supply! We have green tea with our lunch for a change of pace. One can only drink so much water!

Refreshed and recharged we head out again. This time we will follow Bill’s advice (bless you once again, oh great and powerful Oz!) and go east from Lake Village along the shores of Yellowstone Lake looking for grizzlies. Everyone seems to have seen a sow and two or three cubs; but not us!

Our first pull off is for three male mule deer who are grazing in a sunlit meadow. We stay until they disappear into the shadows. Further along we spot a bald eagle landing on her nest. Her mate is in the tree next door! They are our first eagles here in the park.

A quartet of what look like black swans catch our eye. Looking at the photos later, though, we realize they are just more Canada geese. Those guys are absolutely everywhere! There may even be more of them than bison. Maybe.

We are kind of disheartened. It’s our last day and we’ve yet to see a bear up close and personal. First there was the speck along the tree line, then the yearling from afar, then the slightly bigger guy at a distance. It’s okay that they were all black bears; but couldn’t we have one we could really see? Please?

Look, there are people pulled over and there’s something black that doesn’t look like a bison (for a change!). Could it be? It could!! It’s a full-grown male black bear and he is walking toward us parallel to the road and only about fifteen feet from it! He keeps walking and we keep shooting. Now and again Marilyn pulls ahead of him and we let him catch up. It looks like he’d like to cross the road to get to the lake but he doesn’t seem to like the cars and finally turns toward the rise behind him. After stopping to eat a white flower, he begins digging for roots and we leave him in peace.

On our way home we stop at the visitors center to report our sighting and at the general store for provisions. They are having a half-price sale on gold charms and I by a bear for my necklace to commemorate the day! Back at the cabin there is an osprey circling WAY far above us.

We download our photos, one more time, and head off for dinner – yummy shrimp scampi over rice. I add some cole slaw to mine to pretend I’m having a vegetable. There is a nest of tiny bluebirds in one of the rafters of the lodge! The mom disappears as I reach for my camera, but the teensy babies are poking their heads out the end of the rafter!

After dinner we walk home, get ice for tomorrow and get ready for bed. What an incredible day! We finally got our bear! And two bald eagles. And rutting bison. And mule deer. Wow!