Yellowstone

This past weekend Spencer and I, along with our friends Randy and Emily, went to Yellowstone. It all worked out great since Randy and Emily have a place in Island Park, which is about 30 min outside of Yellowstone. Thursday, on our way up we went to this place for lunch called "Big Judd's" They have HUGE hamburgers, I think the biggest one was 5 lbs. This is the weight after it is cooked... Spencer and I shared a 1 lb burger and we couldn't finish it all... imagine a normal size dinner plate, the burger was that big. On the wall were all the records, it said that someone had eaten the 1 lb burger, a large fry and a large drink in 2 min 25 seconds. My mind can't even imagine that! SICK!

We got to Island Park that afternoon, got everything settled and then went to float the river. I think I went into shock when I first got in because it was so cold! I seriously couldn't breath for like 30 seconds. It took about 3 hours to float the river, but we brought drinks and snacks so it was really fun. It got shalow in some parts, so we had to get up and walk. Spencer was so funny because his tube wasn't blown up all the way and when he first got in he went on his stomach and sank a little, oh it was a great site! After we floated the river, we went back to Island Park and I took a hot shower to rid myself of the hypothermia. That night I was so scared because I heard someone outside the front door, I thought they were trying to get in, so I woke Spencer up and he said the door was locked, so I shouldn't worry about it. Well, it turns out the door was NOT locked, but it was only a deer. We had put some watermelon rines on the porch and the deer ate them, plastic bag and all. Better a deer on our porch than a serial killer like I'd imagined.

Friday we decided we would do the lower loop in Yellowstone. This is the loop with Old Faithful. We saw a lot of wild life during the day, but I was so dissapointed because we didn't see any bears. There was a bear sighting there the week before, so my hopes were up. BUT just as we were leaving the park that night we noticed a ton of cars pulled over. I almost kept driving thinking it was a deer or something, but we asked a guy what it was and he said... "It's a Grizzly Bear!" I was so excited, we weren't even in a parking spot, we just left the car (unlocked with all the windows down) and ran to see. Sure enough it was a big brown Grizzly Bear on the other side of the river. There was a very kind man who let us use his binoculars to get a close up look. It was amazing to see a Grizzly Bear in the wild!

The next day we did the upper loop. We saw some wolves, buffalo, moose, elk, deer, lots of stuff. We had a nice picnic, met some nice people and a nice little honeymooner couple. I loved Mammoth Hot Springs, it is absolutely beautiful. I had another great discovery that afternoon, I was just looking out the window, and there was a black bear, on the side of the road sitting in the grass, so we stopped for pictures. The park rangers showed up a few mintues later (someone must have called them) and one of them pulled out a shot gun! I was hoping it just had tranquilizers or something, in case the bear was to run after someone, but no, it was just a regular shotgun. (They said that if the bear were to go after someone, tranquilizers wouldn't work in time, so they needed the shotgun just in case.) Still I was a little shocked that they don't have a better method. Anyway, my dreams came true, I saw two bears in two days!

More pictures will be coming soon!