21 July 2006

Hanging at The Edge with the Guys

The last week and a half has been a busy one. Not because of running around but because of getting back in the swing of having the guys with us. We’ve been having a good time just hanging out at the park we are staying in. They’ve been able to fish and ‘tube the Yellowstone River. We’ve made a couple of trips into Yellowstone National Park when we needed to run away from the heat (been in the upper 90s for the last several days), and all in all having a good time.

Bill and haven’t been taking our cameras with us, but the guys have digitals that they’ve been snapping pics with and those are the ones I’ll be sharing.

The first pics I want to share are from a trip into the park. We came up to a traffic jam and figured it was road construction, there has been a lot of it in the park this year. But instead we see a bison leading the parade and not looking like he has any interest in getting off the road. Eventually a Park Police Officer came and scooted him off the road so he wouldn’t get hurt by stupid tourist doing stupid things, like trying to nudge it with their cars. This other picture is of a Bison on the side of the road, literally close enough that we could have reached out and touched him if we hadn’t driven around the other truck that right next to him.

The Elk that live at Mammoth Hot Springs at the North Entrance to Yellowstone have also greeted us. These guys are almost always there and it amazes me to see people just walk right up to them like they are a zoo attraction. At least at Mammoth there are Park Rangers to remind people to keep as much distance as possible from the animals.

On another trip into the park we walked the to the Brink of the Lower Falls. This is a relatively short path, but it’s straight down multiple switchbacks, and what goes down, must come up. It wasn’t too long, but it was quite the hike. The brink of the lower falls is amazing. You literally stand almost on top of the point where the falls cascade over the rock; it’s a very powerful place. Since we made the hike, we took lots of pictures. Here are pictures of all of us at the Brink.

It’s been a lot of fun to spend time with the guys and have them with us again. It’s been fun to watch them having fun either fishing, tubing, or just hanging out where ever we are. We’ve seen Osprey hunting the rivers, Bald Eagles soaring the skies, Buffalo leading the parade, and Elk hiding in the shade. It’s been a great experience so far for all of us.

;-)K