Yellowstone: The Animals

We had a LOT of pictures from this trip.  1020 from the awesome camera, 320 from the great camera, and who knows how many on the old camera that we let the two little girls take and run around and snap pictures with to their hearts content. I haven't uploaded those yet, so I have no idea how many pictures they took. 


So, it was hard to narrow down.


But I thought I'd start off first with a few pictures of animals.  We saw a LOT of animals.  Hundreds of bison, tons of elk, and bears.  BEARS!  How freaking cool is that?!

(Most of my favorite pictures are, obviously, of the people who were there -- but since I'm still working on those pictures, we'll do animals now and people later.)

Our first day there a park ranger told us about a fresh bison kill South of the Canyon area.  Apparently the wolves had been on the bison carcass all day, but the bears would be coming out soon to get their share.  We apparently got there right as a bear came down, approached the carcass, than ripped off a solid half of it and ran back up into the trees with it.  A few people in our group who got there first saw the bear make the run for the tree line.  Greg and I only saw the carcass that was left over -- that gross lump above the stream, covered by birds.

 This big guy we ran into quite a few times -- he liked to hang out in meadows, along the river, smack dab in the middle of the lane . . .

We saw a ton of bison -- from lone bisons hanging out off the side of the road, to small groups blocking our paths, to huge herds in the meadows and crossing main roads . . . 

Big enough to nearly block our view of the approaching minivan -- that's big.

I feel like this guy and I had a connection -- I mean, dang, eye contact and everything!

Just walking right alongside our vehicles.

We weren't going anywhere for a minute -- but we weren't exactly antsy too either -- it was so cool to watch this herd with their babies cross the road all around us.

Ellie was fascinated by the bison right outside her window!

On one of our hikes we couldn't go any further this direction since a small group of bison picked the pathway as their hang out spot.  We turned around and went back around the other side of the loop.

These bison were up above the path we were walking, when they suddenly decided to make a beeline for the same exact walkway we were traveling.  We had to pick up the pace to get down the mountain before they beat us to it -- they ended up right behind us.  Everyone was kinda tense for a minute until we got the kids further away from the herd.

We watched this coyote try to catch his lunch in this field.  He kept pouncing, but we never did see him get to eat.

Mama bear on one side of our cars (That's Talina in the front seat of the blue car right next to the bear)

And Baby bear on the other side of the road.  You should've seen the idiot in the Mini Cooper who got out with his camera and started snapping pictures of them while standing DIRECTLY BETWEEN Mom & Baby.  Genius.)