Another Fantastic Day at Yellowstone

On our second full day at Yellowstone I woke the kids up early...5:30 to be exact...and we grabbed a granola bar and jumped in the car, which was warm and cozy, a welcomed relief after spending the night without heat in the camper and a low of 32 degrees. My goal was to spot some wildlife, particularly a bear. The pictures will tell the story.

We headed north out of our campground toward Hayden Valley which rangers had told me was a good place to spot wildlife. No wildlife in the above picture, but the scene was spectacular.

Not many folks were on the road at this hour, so we had all this beautiful scenery to ourselves.

We did see a lot of buffalo, but we saw so many that we began to take them for granted.

It was still very cold and the valley was filled with fog coming off of the water. Back in the distance you can see the smoke of a geyser.

We hiked around the south rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone in the afternoon and got to see this amazing waterfall.

At about 9:00am we saw some cars pulled over which is a sure sign that there's something to look at. Just down the hill in the meadow was this mother grizzly and her two cubs! I don't have a very powerful lens, so even after cropping these, this is as close as I could get it.

She was a big mamma and was foraging for food while her cubs tagged along; running, jumping and playing with each other.

Finally she got tired and laid down to take a breather, but those stinker cubs wouldn't give her a moment's rest. At this point a semi-professional photographer who noticed my inadequate lens, asked me if I'd like to look through his gi-normous lens. Cool! It was amazing. Then he told me to take the camera card out of my camera and he'd put it in his and take some pictures. He was using a Canon as well.

So here's his pictures! He told me that because it was already 9:30am the sun was too bright and that there would be shadows on the pictures. I fudged with them a bit in iphoto and I think they look pretty cool! Thank you Mr. Jim Hurley!

Look at that cub pushing and kicking his poor mamma.

There's cub #2.

Mom's checkin' things out and making sure cub #2 sticks close.

This is at the south rim of the Grand Canyon again.

We went to Mud Volcano and just a few feet off the path was this guy. I must admit I was a bit uneasy since there was no fence or anything. We just walked slow and he left us alone.

More wildlife. Scary!

We did lots of hiking and had a great day. Pictures and words really don't do justice to what we've seen and experienced. Even the rocks cry out!