Yellowstone or Bust

I turned 55 this year.  To me, it is a scary year.  Scarier than 30. Scarier than 40.  Scarier than 16. Scarier than....

I hope I make it to 75.  I'll be happy if I make it to 75.

I woke up one morning early this year and thought...okay...it is time to make that bucket list and to start to tackle it.  I can't keep this on hold any longer (and yet...I feel my life in many ways is on hold and hopefully my home will sell soon so I can put it back in forward again).

I'm a member of a couple different camera clubs and one in particular has a lot of mention of Yellowstone National Park.  It wasn't difficult to figure out that it was probably the most interesting and easiest to get to at this point with my current location being in the midwest.  Only a two full thirteen hour days drive away.  I love road trips.  I was going.  With or without someone by my side.  I am glad I was not alone...but I would have done it alone.

What an awesome trip.  We headed out of Wisconsin through the northwest corner travelling the southern edges of Minnesota and on into Sioux Falls SD, and on into the east of Wyoming, travelling through the Badlands, the Bighorn National Forest and into the northeastern entrance of Yellowstone.  From a landscape perspective, I believe Bighorn National Forest and Badlands was right up there and, at points, even more impressive than Yellowstone.

Yellowstone was filled with it's share of wildlife and yet we had a nice share of wildlife also in Bighorn National Forest (more abundant with moose) and the Badlands (prairie dogs and Pronghorn).

Yellowstone is abundant with Bison and Elk, and Mule deer.  We had to hike to find the mountain goats and it took us three days to see the bear.  We saw coyotes and black wolves.  The bison, elk, mule deer and goats all had young ones.  This was the first week in June.  We were probably a little late for some of them but there were enough to really get the excitement of the wildlife.

I highly recommend booking in advance and if going at this prime spring time of the year, book at Mammoth Springs. The wildlife is most abundant along this Lamar Valley of the park.  We also stayed at Canyon Lodge in the cabins at the end of our stay which is where we saw the wolves and coyotes, large elk along the road and grizzly bears.

We meandered from there on down to the Grand Tetons for a day trip and definitely will venture back there again some other time for a longer stay.  They are definitely a site to see.  There I felt the landscape was much prettier than Yellowstone.  Yellowstone had it's spots but there are so many areas covered with downed trees that it took away from the view sometimes.  Don't get me wrong, it had some awesome spots and definitely a variety of ecological environments.  The sulphur springs were amazing. The waterfalls were breathtaking.  To me, the prettiest view I had in Yellowstone was the one above.

After the first few days there with highs in the mid 70s, we woke to move to the Canyon Lodge Cabins on Wednesday morning in below freezing temperatures and light snowfall that dusted the earth in just enough snow to make you realize how powerful Mother Nature is.

Breathtaking.  Refreshing. Inspiring.

On our way back, we went west out of the park in search of a wildlife preserve hopefully harboring moose in Idaho, back up through Montana and North Dakota and northern region of Minnesota.  All of this we crammed into a week.

Please...take more than a week and appreciate what the earth has to offer.

More to follow.