Who Needs Sleep?

I could hardly believe what I was hearing when Dan got home from work on Thursday night (Friday morning, really)! Be on the road by 8 am? Seriously? Well, it IS Yellowstone NP, so less than six hours later, I was dragging my happy hiney out from under the covers. (Ok, happy might be a stretch.) By just shortly after 8, we were on the interstate headed west. 

Since we have never been in the park earlier in the year than May, and only one road is currently open, we weren't sure what we might see. The flip side of that, though, is that we spent more time in the places where we COULD get ~ namely Mammoth and the Lamar Valley. Without the summer crowds, we did a lot more exploring (and photographing) on the lower level of the hot springs than we ever have before. The contrast of steam and snow was beautiful! 

From Mammoth, we moved on to Undine Falls. I wasn't sure if they would look much different in winter. Since the water moves so quickly, I wasn't sure that it would freeze. But it was different, and it was gorgeous. 

Now our focus turned to wildlife. We passed a group of people with spotting scopes (usually a dead give-away that something is out there), but the pullout was full, so we continued on down the road. Of course the buffalo were out in force. I do not generally enjoy photographing bison because they are so common, but on this trip, I challenged myself to find a setting that made for a memorable photo. We also added pictures of big horn sheep, moose, and elk to our collection as well. 

On the way back out, the spotting scopes were still set up, so we decided to stop and see what was out there. Thanks to the generosity of one of the spotters, I got my first look at a Yellowstone wolf. There were two of them, sleeping on a hillside nearly a mile away. Yes, these researchers had been sitting in the exact same spot for THREE hours watching wolves sleep!! ANYWAY...

Over dinner in Gardiner on the way home, we were looking at the pictures we had taken. The employee saw us looking and told us exactly when and where we could get photos of elk calves. Looks like a return trip to Yellowstone is in order. Well, if we MUST... 
                                                         to be continued.