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.

7-mile hike took us back and forth amongst the beaten & unbeaten paths.

The local slang for baby bison is “red dog.”

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Is this the real life? Or is this fantasy?

Vacation Ruination Bingo was a total bust. Nothing on the bingo card happened save for some Crap Weather, now and then, particularly in the beginning. Here we are on Rainy Day #1 killing bad weather time at Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, MT.