We're Back!

*Critters we’ve seen on our 2013 trip so far:  bison, pronghorn, elk, white-tail deer, Uinta ground squirrel, coyote

*Birds we’ve seen on our 2013 trip so far: osprey, magpie, raven, Canada geese

The trip cross country was thankfully uneventful, and we arrived at Yellowstone National Park on April 29, our home for the next 5 months.  Abby at times has taken Mikey’s place at Russ’ side helping him “navigate” as he drives, but mostly she hangs by me dozing or looking out the window.  Our main reason for arriving so early was to hopefully enjoy seeing lots of newborn critters and the fast rushing waters from the snow melt.  However, we may have arrived too early because the rivers and streams seemed to be running about like they do during the height of summer.  Evidently the snow melt had not yet started.

Not far outside the park we spotted our first osprey of the year perched in its nest high above on the telephone wires, and the magpies greeted us not long after we pulled into our campsite.  Ranger Allan happened to be in the office when we arrived and said for us to just 
       pull into site 1, the host site closest to the office.  The lower loop of the campground is closed for the winter, but we would be moving down there to our home site for the summer later in the week.

The next day a storm front could be seen moving in, but we were snug and cozy in our RV.  Early the next morning a dusting of snow lay upon the ground, and though the day remained overcast, the snow melted fairly quickly.  The nights were getting down into the high
     20s/low 30s with daytime highs in the 40s - low 50s.  A little chilly but not too bad as long as there was no breeze.
 

        A couple of days later we took our first drive out to the Lamar Valley region where this bison decided he needed to cross the road right at that moment.  Always remember…this park belongs to the animals

and we are merely visitors in their domain!  Though we had heard there were quite a number of bison calves this year, we really didn’t see many on this drive.  Maybe they were all napping somewhere, but we were sure we’d see plenty of them eventually.

 

We finally moved down to site 41 over the weekend with our incredible view of the valley to the north.  The lower loop would remain closed for about another week, and it was as if we were in our own private gated community.  One day as we headed back from

      the grocery store in town, we stopped in the pullout along the road across from our site for one of those rare photo ops…our lone RV with no other campers anywhere to be seen.

 

    Without all the other campsites filled in the lower loop, the elk were in abundance on a daily basis, not only in the early morning and evening but hanging throughout the day.  The photo at right was directly across from our campsite,

      and the the gal pictured at left even found herself a nice place to rest with a view just on the other side of our picnic table!

 

        On other days bison could be found grazing up the hill in Mammoth Hot Springs, and a lone coyote scouted the hillside in the campground for its next meal.  Further north along the banks of the Gardiner River,

      ravens were finishing up what was left of a carcass in the river.  Such is the circle of life.

   Yellowstone Tidbits:

• Yellowstone National Park encompasses 3,472 sq. miles (2,221,766 acres), larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

• The park is an active volcano with one of the world’s largest calderas, and has 1,000-3,000 earthquakes annually.
• There are more than 300 active geysers, more than 10,000 hydrothermal features, and about 290 waterfalls.