Here’s the wildlife sighting list:

• Thousands of bison
• Black bear
• Grizzly bear
• Pronghorn antelope
• Mule deer
• Whitetail deer
• Bighorn sheep
• Elk
• Moose
• Coyote
• Bald eagle
• Osprey
• Sandhill crane
• Hawk
• Bufflehead duck
• Merganser
• Western tanager

Sometimes at night I curl up in my bed and think about those two million acres of bison bedding down for the night. Those bears curled up in their dens. Those antelopes and deer and elk and sheeps and mooses, those coyotes, wolves, and birds. Over two million acres of them. With such a small handful of roads, paths, and trails, which occasionally fill up with primates, who march past, and stop and stare, and go on, leaving the two million acres worth of creatures in peace. I’m so glad it’s out there.

Then sometimes I think about how quiet it is in my bed, with nobody marching on the ceiling above me or slamming doors to the left and right. That hotel was a real thumbs down.

End of Yellowstone. Back to Bozeman – which blows Burlington out of the water, I got to say. We were there downtown on a Wednesday night and there was SO much happening. So many places were OPEN even till 8 PM. There were TWO cool bookstores, OPEN, on same block. One of them had a music theme and also sold vinyl; the focus was jazz, but there was a whole section just of Bob Dylan books. I was glad we didn’t spend more time in Bozeman or I’d have died of jealousy. Oh, and Pride flags everywhere, lest you think “Yeah but ew isn’t it still Montana?”

It’s their world. We just visit.

Can never remember the name of this famous site. Grand Prismatic Spring? Grand Prismatic Pool? Spring. I think it’s Spring.

This was the day we returned to the Old Faithful area. The first time was awesome, but it was the same day as the bears, so the bears got top billing.

I had been actually dreading going to Old Faithful. Some parts of the park are really crowded and annoying, and I thought O.F. would be the worst of all. I have to say O.F. blows Niagara Falls out of the water. No Pun Intended! HA HA HA! Really I couldn’t help but compare. N.F. was such a nightmare. O.F. OTOH has some excellent infrastructure going on. Plenty of places to a) park b) sit down and watch c) eat d) go to the bathroom, plus literally miles of further walking you can do; and all it really takes in any national park to get away from the crowds is just walk a few yards.

The above Grand Prismatic Thingy is a short drive from Old Faithful. There is a main parking area where you can park if you want to get up close (you maybe can make out the people in this picture who are up close) but it was always jam-packed. Whereas a modest little hike you can take further up the road gives you this stunning view. Take the hike!

Also, a good walk stymied:

A little blurry, sorry. These guys are the only species to eat the sagebrush, and I’m told they taste terrible. The antelope. Probably the sagebrush too.

You could almost imagine you were at Lake Champlain – except for the frikkin’ steam pouring up out of the ground. Here we marked another successful day of not getting mauled by a bear, accidentally setting off our own bear spray, or falling through the earth’s crust!

Here are a grizzly bear and two cubs, which crossed right in front of us while we were doing a hike. There were a fair number of people around. And the bear had somewhere she definitely wanted to be going. She didn’t even look our way, just kept on going and heading off with her two kids. So I wasn’t entirely shitting my pants. I still thought we should leave. But I was outvoted and we actually kept on.

We had bear spray. You have to have bear spray.

Posted on every trailhead:

Posted on some trailheads:

One nice-looking walk we wanted to do was entirely closed due to bears.

Xopher does some scrabbling over rocks at Sheepeater Cliffs. We did not eat sheep. But we did have elk chili that day.

Geothermal features aren’t my exact cup of tea, but they were the reason Xopher picked Yellowstone.