The Moose in the Darkness

In Yellowstone, we watched in awe as a grizzly bear flipped over a big stone with his mighty claws to munch on whatever lay beneath. He was massive. He was easily viewable, but perched on a little hill a safe distance from us. It was just the moment I was hoping for. I kept saying that I wanted to see a grizzly bear while adding the all-important phrase, "from a safe distance". (You have to be careful what you wish for, right?) We did a fair bit of hiking in Yellowstone and I had NO interest in seeing anything bigger than a marmot while we walked in the woods. We were lucky there, but Brent and I did see some impressive remains on one walk - sun-bleached bones laying on a log. It was just a huge pelvis attached to a few hefty vertabrae - um, what was it before it got eaten? Maybe a more important question was, what ate it? As those questions ran through our minds, we thought more about running to our campsite. We finished the walk at a swift pace and were happy when our tent came into view. (Although, how much protection can a tent provide? The only vicious animal our tent kept out was the mosquitoes - well, thank goodness for that . . . )

The interesting thing about Yellowstone, is it's HUGE. It's so expansive that it's a wonder we saw any animals at all. It seems they can get lost in all that space and easily avoid us nosey little tourists. That leads me to believe some Yellowstone residents are just as curious about people as we are of them and/or are show-boating attention-lovers. I swear there was an elk that kept getting closer to a group of tourists and striking different poses right in front of all the camera-toting lookey-loos. He was meant to be a star.

We saw a handful of black bears, one was close enough to be pretty exciting! We saw a grizzly eating a kill at a bit of a distance and another young grizzly on that same hill we saw the first big one. There were lots of bison to view, deer, and elk. When we first entered the park, a group of elk made high-pitched yelps at us as they crossed the road in front of our car. We were just moments into our Yellowstone adventure and we'd already been yelled at by elk! The animal that seemed most elusive, besides the wolves that we never had the luck to see, was the moose. I realllly wanted to see a moose. As we were heading back to our campsite late one evening, we saw the sillhouette of a large elk-like creature in a pond by the side of the road - it was a moose! As dusk surrounded us, we watched the moose slurp up swamp sludge, or something, in utter peace. I was so thrilled with our moose sighting and was so happy to have a picture of him. Sadly, it turned out completely dark and you can't really see the moose at all. I will just keep it in my memory.

The great news is - we logged lots of miles during our visit. We're finally over 300 miles - yay!!!