Yellowstone National Park

So, we have left Cooke City and traversed the 4 miles to the northeast entrance to Yellowstone Natl. Park.  It would have been much closed had we entered through the east entrance but we had already made the drive from Cody to the east entrance so we wanted to see something different.  As of that time, not all the entrances were open due to snow.    

It did not take long before we passed a herd of buffalo…we saw so many that day.  You reach the point where you have to say “Oh yeah, more buffalo” and keep driving.

A lovely little stream. I love the water, especially rivers and creeks.

Anytime you come upon a group of cars parked along the roadside you just know there is a bear in the area…usually there is at least one park ranger in the group.  We were not disappointed…we got to see this mom with her two yearlings.  They will stay with their mom until next spring.  Black bears only keep their young with them for 2 years but grizzlies keep theirs for 3 years.  We watched them graze for quite a while.  The rangers made sure everyone stayed about 100 yds. back.

Bob spotted a grizzly that was running across the road in front of us but by the time I looked up from my map all I saw was his rear end going through the bushes.  He was moving very fast.

We made our way up to the Mammoth Hot Springs area of the park.  This is where the park headquarters is located.  The last time we were at Mammoth there were lots of elk there.  We were not disappointed.  These guys just walk and lounge around everywhere…they are not intimated by the people at all.

We wound around inside the park on our way out the east entrance that would take up back to Cody when we spotted this wolf. There was so much snow on the way out and Yellowstone Lake was still mostly frozen over.  The prettiest part of the trip was between Fishing Bridge and the east entrance but by that time my tummy had enough of roundy round and up and down so the puppies and I were laying down in the back seat. 

So glad we got to see a lot of the park while there was still so much snow. 

Moving on.