I believe this is the first post on Yellowstone Daily that doesn’t have any photos. I have some photos I could post but I want to try to create some images in your mind using just words.
After living in our trailer 10 miles north of Yellowstone for six months we left for the Tetons and other places south this morning. I started missing Yellowstone while we were driving around it yesterday looking at the beautiful yellow-leafed cottonwoods, a cute coyote, and fewer tourists than we’ve seen since late April.
Today was bright and sunny and warm in Yellowstone, especially for this time of year. Many of the cottonwoods were backlit by the sun and glowed various shades of yellows and oranges. They were absolutely brilliant.
As we drove through Mammoth I looked over at the superintendent’s house. The front yard was filled with elk. All female except for one big bull. I couldn’t tell if it was Touchdown or not but it was a nice way to see Mammoth for the last time until next April.
As we drove to Norris, over to Canyon and into Hayden Valley I thought about all of the wonderful things we have seen in Yellowstone in the last 40 years. I don’t think there are too many spots that don’t conjure up a memory: a herd of elk, a black bear killing a baby elk, Quad Mom sharing a baby elk with her 4 cubs as the elk’s mom called for it, pikas running in the rocks, a mama dipper feeding it’s begging fledged baby on Glen Creek above Rustic Falls, Quad Mom getting separated from her 4 cubs just as a big boar grizzly showed up on Swan Lake Flat and all of the cubs standing up on a hill hugging each other, a grizzly sow with 2 cubs with natural tan collars near Dynamite Curve with one of the babies repeatedly pushing on a downed tree limb just to see it spring back and hit him, a weasel appearing almost at our feet at we filmed the grizzly with the two cubs, wolves and a grizzly on a carcass just visible through the trees, Porcupine Bear finishing up a meal of beaver and then twirling the beaver’s skin like a pizza, seeing Steamboat Geyser over 300 feet high in the steam phase, almost running over a moose one night with 15 students with us, a black wolf walking down the middle of the road like he owned it (he did), filming a spider web at daybreak and looking up just in time to see the Canyon wolf pack trotting along about 20 feet away from us, a great gray owl sitting in a tree with a jillion photographers snapping pictures then swooping down and snagging a vole right in front of the photographers, a grizzly swimming the Yellowstone, catching 64 cutthroat trout in 2 hours above Buffalo Ford (now Nez Perce Ford), watching a bald eagle nest that was there for years in a tree on the bank of the Yellowstone River near Alum Creek, watching my husband catch his first cutthroat, listening to my husband yelling for me to come take a picture of his first Yellowstone cutthroat trout while I was running off to take a picture of the first moose I had ever seen, listening to my husband gripe everytime we pass that spot where he caught his first cutthroat trout, telling jokes about the endangered meander, and on and on.
I am 62 years old. Because of my husband I was lucky enough to find Yellowstone when I was 22 years old. Because we were both teachers we have been able to visit Yellowstone every summer for the last 40 years. Because we are retired now we can stay as long as we like. If you subscribe to Yellowstone Daily you already know how special Yellowstone is. I have seen more wildlife in my life than most people could see in 5 life times. If I died tomorrow I would die happy knowing how lucky I have been to spend so much time in such a beautiful place with so many great people. (Although they do let some idiots in Yellowstone it is a natural filter for the type of people I enjoy spending time with. Go spend a day at Trout Lake at the end of June and you will see what I mean.)
Thank you Yellowstone for letting me see some of your many wonders. I know how truly lucky I am. And thank you dear reader for “listening.”
I still have a few things I want to post about what we saw the last few days in Yellowstone. We are in the Tetons now and I will be posting about some sightings here as well. In a few days we will leave the Tetons and head south. I plan to post some things about Yellowstone occasionally over the winter but won’t be back to Yellowstone and regular postings until April. Sigh.
Thank you for all your stories. Today I went for a drive and was thinking about your post about why leaves turn color in fall. Does this mean you won’t be posting on here until next year? I hope not, I would miss them.