Elk

Hi everyone. Happy Saturday. I hope you're starting off the weekend in a good way. 

I thought I would share a few more Yellowstone photos with you today as I am making headway as I go through all the photos I took.

Back on T Day a couple of weeks ago I shared some buffalo with you, and today I thought I would share some elk. 

We visited during September which was mating season for elk, and when we arrived in Mammoth Hot Springs, one male and his harem had taken over some of the grass near a building.

The rangers with their megaphones were out in full force for protection, and if you dared to step out of your car near this group, you were told to get back into your vehicle. 

You could however drive over and park and watch them from your car. That's why you get a bit of car dashboard along the bottom of the photos. 

This bull had quite the set of antlers on him. And he a large harem of cows too, 

According to the ranger we spoke with across the street and in a safe zone to get out and walk, this area of Mammoth Hot Springs has heritage grass as it is a historical zone. The elk love this type of grass to eat, and that attracts them to this location.

Mammoth Hot Springs originally was Fort Yellowstone. This was back in the day before there were Park Rangers. At this fort, soldiers controlled poaching by arresting those caught doing it, educated early visitors, provided medical care to those who needed it, fought fires and expelled anyone trying to set up a homestead within the park. 

On the day we arrived, Mammoth Hot Springs was definitely an elk haven.

Be careful where you step.

And looking back into Mammoth Hot Springs as we headed on our way, you can still see all the elk out in the grassy area.

We also saw another harem later that evening when we stopped to get dinner at the cafe at the Lake Yellowstone housing area.  I didn't get as many photos here as it was almost dark, but these elk look more natural in this environment.

Compared to our 2003 trip to this park, we saw a lot more wildlife this time than we had on our first visit.  This next photo is terrible as it was on the door of the building where our hotel room was, and I had a lot of reflection, but it always good to keep in mind.

Have a great rest of your weekend. And thanks for stopping by.

T Stands for Yellowstone Breakfasts and LOTS of Bison

 Hi everyone. Last week went very fast, and here it is time for T again already.

I think we will all miss Bleubeard and Elizabeth this week for T over at her blog.  Hopefully her jury duty will be over by next week, and she'll be back to join us. She and I spoke, and I will be your guest host this week. I don't think I can fill her shoes, but I am happy to help her out.

Since I've started sharing some photos from Yellowstone National Park, let me share what we had for breakfast the 3 mornings we were in the park. This is a bit of a long post- so sorry!

Most mornings we wanted to get an early start, so we opted for junk food in the car. If you've been to Yellowstone you know how big the park is and driving from place to place can take quite a while. Plus, since we visited in September, many of the dining facilities had closed down, so the only place nearby to get breakfast was the main restaurant of the complex we stayed in (Grants Village).  Not that breakfast would take that long, but still longer than munching as we hit the road.

As  kids for both my husband and myself, road trips always meant donuts. Some memories just stick with you, and even now, road trips often mean a chance to have donuts.  These Hostess mini donuts  bought at the mini-store/gas station at Grant Village are still pretty tasty (although yes, not at all healthy) considering there was no place to buy "real" donuts nearby (and yes, those are not really healthy either). 

One morning we went for chocolate covered. And on another we opted for crunch.

And one morning I really needed actual food, plus we were tired and not as concerned about getting an early start, so we opted for the buffet at the village restaurant.

You can see both my mixed-berry juice and the oj  that my husband had. He also had coffee, which for some reason didn't make it into the photo. This is my T day photo. T Day is held every week over at 

And let me share a few more trip photos with you to finish off my post. We did see a lot of bison. (If you're not interested, now is the time to jump down comments, or click off if you aren't going to comment.)

I didn't know that the bison at Yellowstone are all from animals that have been on that land since prehistoric times. Their numbers were down to about 24 in 1902, and that was when the park instated a program to bring up the numbers of bison. There are now estimated to be around 5000 bison in the park. None  of those bison were  relocated into the park, but are offspring from the original program founded in 1902.  (You can read more here if you're interested: Yellowstone Bison.)

This herd (in the above photos) was a bit on the far away side, but later that day, when we drove as far along in the north-east direction as we could into part of the Lamar Valley (you might remember that parts of Northern Yellowstone had horrible floods back in the spring that still closed off bits to traffic), we came across a lot of bison. We were able to park and watch them for 45 minutes or so.

I love watching wildlife, so this was one of the highlights of the trip for me.

This guy at the top of the above photo was having fun rolling in the dirt. You can even see some of his dust. Bison don't look that limber, but I guess they are. They also don't look like they can run fast, but they certainly can do that too.

And these 4 (below) decided to go swimming.

And one thing none of my photos (including these) show is how many bison there were in this area.

Then just as we were to drive away from watching these bison, about a dozen bison decided to cross the road right in front of us.

I guess grazing on the other side of the road was better.

And if you aren't sick of bison yet, another one we  came across had decided to take a walk down the road.

And several minutes later, after we arrived at a higher elevation and could look back down to the road, he was still taking his stroll. 

And finally,  later that same day, here's another bison we met. He was taking a walk along the road we were driving on, this time coming towards us on the same side of the road as we were on.

 I managed a great frontal shot. He looks sweet and furry, but since he's wild and way way bigger than me, I stuck with snapping a quick  photo as we drove by him.

Note: Bison can run 35 miles an hour (about 56 kph) which is way faster than any human can run. They also weigh 800-2200 pounds (360 kg-998 kg), depending on their age and whether they are male or female. And they are wild animals.  Even though they are great to watch them, it is much better to leave them be and keep your distance. 

That's more than enough for T, even though I could show you bison photos all day. Smile. 

Thanks for visiting, and have a great T day and week ahead also.

More from Yellowstone

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you. For some people this is a long weekend, so if that's you, I hope you enjoy it.

I've been going through my trip photos, but after finishing my Great Basin NP photos, I jumped ahead to the end of our trip. (I'll get back to the other photos.) Our last National Park was Yellowstone, where we spent 2 1/2 days. Yesterday I showed you some photos of geysers, and today I'll finish photos from the 2 1/2 mile walk we took around the geyser basin near Old Faithful.

When we last visited this park in 2003, the smell of sulphur was strong. That smell didn't agree with the 10 year old daughter, and she was a major PAIN. That is the nicest way I can put it. And of course that interfered with us enjoying the park.  (But I will say, when we got home a few days later she was diagnosed with strep, and she has always had lots of other symptoms than just her throat, so maybe that explains her crankiness.)

There was a light wind on this recent day we visited, and it really didn't smell bad at all. If any bad memories from our first trip lingered, they soon disappeared. The effects of chemicals spewing out of the earth really created some interesting and sometimes snow-like effects.

Besides Yellowstone, I've seen geysers in Iceland, just not in this concentration.

I have lots of ideas for page backgrounds after seeing the ground in this area. The effects created from geysers old and new are really fascinating and would make some cool textures in artwork.

And I remember this sign from our 2003 visit. I used to talk about these bacterial mats when I taught microbiology.

When we were almost back to the buildings and parking lot area, Old Faithful erupted again. It was great to see it from a different view. This eruption didn't last quite as long as the one we had prime seat viewing for.

And here's a couple more ground textures and views to wrap up this post.

I hope you enjoyed these views. Have a wonderful start to your weekend.