Glenn and I slipped off for a week in Yellowstone National Park on Sunday, August 16. Meghan's mom-in-law Marsha was in town from OH and temporarily took over daycare duties.
We particularly enjoy camping in the Slough Creek rustic campground located in the northeast corner of the park. Since it's 185 miles from our house to Madison Junction within YNP, and further still to Slough Creek, we figured it best to leave early. So, we were up and out of the house at 5:00 a.m. We did make a short pitstop at Denny's in Pocatello for breakfast, as we also knew it would be a while before we'd set up camp and could make something for ourselves.
We arrived at the 28-site facility about 10:20 a.m. and got one of two remaining vacant sites. I'm not sure if that specific week in August was busy due to schools reopening soon, or that Sunday was busy as it was the "free weekend" in national parks around the country. Nonetheless, it was a beehive of activity at Slough Creek as people scrambled for sites. I actually observed one fellow setting up his tent before the previous party completely vacated!
Glenn snapped this photo of me shortly after we arrived. The bison in the background spent a good bit of time lounging in the adjacent campsite (our fellow campers had pitched their small tent and taken off for the day).
We set up our tent-camper, then took a quick drive to Cooke City, MT for gas and an ATM machine. When we returned later, we observed two park rangers shooting air cannons at this bison -- which had moved to the other end of the campground. We later learned he's wounded, apparently not getting the better end of an argument with one of his compatriots. He's a big ornery, so the air cannons were used to spook him out of the campground.
All of this may be mildly interesting, but the highpoint(s) of our day was a record-setting (for us) sightings of FOUR bears! We viewed a black bear and her cub coming into the park and a cinnamon black bear as well. Returning from Cooke City, we stopped with a mass of folks watching another black bear munch his way through a big patch of buffalo berries!
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