Never Thought Seeing Elk Would be Old News

A grizzly bear.
A baby elk.

Another elk snoozing in the sun.

An elk who looks somewhat annoyed that we disturbed his sleep with our picture-taking.

A buffalo who is not in the best mood. If you could only hear the noise he was making and see the spit flying from his mouth and nose.

The veiw from our car. We had to roll the window up when they got closer and the picture-taking ceased as they were inches from our car, some of them running full speed ahead.

We have seen tons of elk and buffalo since arriving in Yellowstone. So many elk that we don't even slow down the car at times when the are on the road side. Initially we were so thrilled to see them we stopped every time to take pictures. Now we are on a hunt for more rare animals, like bears, moose, and long horned sheep. Day two of Yellowstone consisted of an early morning trip to the park to watch the animals when they were most active, right after sunrise. We spotted a grizzly bear, a few wolves, and a herd of pronghorn antelopes. I learned how to tell if it's a grizzly or a black bear, by the hump on the back of the grizzly bears back. This one was fairly far away as you can see, which was fine by me. When you are bear watching while pregnant, with a two year old on your hip, far is good. The wolves were even farther, so I didn't load the pictures on the blog for fear you would mistake them for specs of dust on your computer screen. They were fun to watch though. They were playing tug-a-war with piece of skin from an animal they had killed. Luckily another onlooker had a great telescope that he let me look through, which put my binoculars that look like I got them out of a cereal box to shame. Meanwhile, Evan and Daddy walked around in the field, dodging large piles of buffalo poop, followed by a play session in the car. Evan likes to pretend he is driving and loves to push any buttons within his reach. One button however was the lock to the rental car which also sets the alarm. Much to our surprise when we opened the car door after our wildlife viewing, the alarm went off. Onlookers consisted of avid wildlife watchers with expensive telescopes and camera equipment who just seconds earlier were making sure to whisper as to not scare away the animals. Evan took care of that in about 2 seconds. A few seconds later the park police came up to inform us we had parked illegally. Luckily we will never see those people again. It was just slightly embarasing, this is coming from a person who prefers to blend in at all times!!! We finished the day with a long nap at the cabin, followed by a short hike up to wraith falls, pizza at a local pizza joint claiming they were the "best pizza in the west", and smores over our grill. Then we enjoyed the cool weather and stars out on the porch before retiring to bed. A perfect day in my eyes!!!