RV Travels: Weekly Wanderings #35 – Yellowstone

[Sorry for the delay! I had a technical issue that prevented me from creating or editing a post. I've had this puppy ready to go, just way of getting out!]

We decided to cut our trip to Glacier National Park short (don't worry we were still the ten days) because we really missed the fabulous wildlife that you see practically every hour in Yellowstone.

We drove 8.5 hours on Tuesday, it was a long day but a beautiful drive. We arrived at our RV site, made dinner, prepped for breakfast and lunch and crashed!

Wednesday morning we got up early to head for Lamar Valley. The road between Norris and Mammoth Springs was out so we had to go around. We didn't see any bears or elk so we headed to Yellowstone Lake to scout for a sunrise shot.

It had already snowed here and it adds an extra layer of beauty to this already gorgeous park. The snow is not down to the valley floor level, but it's going to be!

As we approached the Canyon Village area I glanced at a signpost to see how far it was to the lake and I did a double-take. You know those plastic owls the put on roofs to ward off certain birds? Well as we drove by it looked like someone had placed one on the sign. But then I thought to myself, “that's not right!”

I told Mr. Misadventures to turnaround. We found a safe parking spot (because we are responsible tourists! Don't get me started…) and although the owl had flown into the tree above the sign, he was still there.

We had been hoping for months to get one. We scared one on an off-road in Palouse and never had another opportunity.

Isn't he a beaute?

Once we got to the lake we encountered a male elk with the biggest antlers I've ever seen! He was accompanied by two female but the show is all him!

On Thursday morning we went to Hayden Valley for a sunrise shoot but were clouded out so we sat there listening to the animals.

We heard the elk calling to each other and possibly a bear although it was likely a bison.

The previous day we heard wolf howls, we never saw them but it was thrilling to hear!

On the way headed north, we started seeing bears. We saw a mama and two cubs. I cannot tell you how cool it was to watch the bears climb to the top of a tree to eat pine cones (I think they must be young ones because otherwise don't you think that would be like eating prickly sawdust?!)! It looked like the baby was stuck for a while (or scared) but the mama scampered right up to show him or her how it's done!

Friday, we were supposed to “sleep in” until 6 (skipping our usual sunrise shoot) and were going to head straight to early morning wildlife photography, but Mr. Misadventures got up at 4:45 then 5:30 so we just headed out at 6. (I’m going to have a lie-in Sunday morning, trust me!). Anyway, we headed to Hayden Valley where Mr. Misadventures ran into another wildlife photographer he had met the day before. We had stopped to look at a group of female elk in a wooded meadow. As my hubby was chatting with the other guy, a big male elk appeared across the street from them (Mr. Misadventures was on the side of the road where the female was.).

I was in the car and I looked up to see the male running toward what appeared to be right at my hubby and his friend when in reality he was running across the street a little beyond them. Totally FREAKED me out! They got great shots of the big guy (although his antlers were not as big as the one we saw on Wednesday)!

Next thing I knew the two of them were taking off through the field into the woods. Mr. Misadventures didn’t come back until 90 minutes later. Now, maybe I have read too many serial killer/crime novels, but I’m thinking you just met this guy and you are going off into the woods alone with him? He could kill you, bury you and it’d be a while before we found you!

Turns out, Mr. Michigan (where the other photographer was from) had seen an owl go into the forest, so they followed in hopes of capturing him/her on film. They got him and its another gorgeous one, a Great Horned Owl with different from the one we saw on Wednesday, another stunner.

Sorry, you will have to see photos of the elk, bear, and the other owl in my Yellowstone post, Mr. Misadventures has taken 2500 shots in three days and it takes time to go through them. If he keeps up his schedule he’ll have 10,000+ photos to sort by the time we leave! For wildlife, his camera is set up to take 14 shots per second, that means a lot of photos!

He’ll crash in a few days though so maybe I’ll get some photos sooner rather than later! We are getting up at 5 and the park is so large you end up driving 6-7 hours a different just to get around. That starts taking a toll.

Current location:

Mountainside KOA, West Yellowstone, Montana.

That was my week, how about yours?

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