YELLOWSTONE!!

We took over 2,000 pictures over the week and decided to share our favorites with you (there are quite a few).
We spent a lot of our time driving around the park stopping at waterfalls, viewpoints, etc. Whenever there was a whole group of cars on the side of the road we know we'd hit the jackpot w/ some type of big animal... we'll get to that.
On our first night we drove around for a bit and saw some sights before we went to find a campsite. Bad idea. The first area we came to was full, as was our second stop. The third place we stopped we followed a camper into the site, and within three minutes he turned around and headed out. Feeling a bit of trepidation that we'd also be turned away we were thrilled that they still had tent sites open, yay!! We got a pretty decent spot near the bathroom. However, the trail to the bathroom went through our campsite, literally. So all night long we had people walking back and forth past our tent. Oh well, at least we were near the lou!!
We up and out the next morning by 5:45 and headed to Lamar Valley to see some wolves... nothing. Lots of Buffalo and a few other animals but no wolves. Oh well, we had all week.
Most of the animals looks like kind of gross because they're shedding their winter coats.

Bison & Mule Deer
Very large Buffalo chip...
Warm springs all over the place
Squirrel
Rangers making sure no one was getting too close to the animals (thought of Brian as they walked toward us!)
Black bear w/ cub coming down the tree. She actually had twins but they came out of the tree too far apart to get a photo.
Pronghorn Antelope
Moose below a dead tree. I had a chance glimpse of this one as we were driving.

Bison & Calf
Bison & Calf
Black Bear
Mule Deer
Petrified Tree
I saw a moose through the trees across from the petrified tree and wanted a better picture so I walked down the road a little bit to try to get a better photo. Turned out the "moose" was a tree stump but there was a bear up a tree right near where I was looking. He's the big black dot near the top of the tree.
When it got colder there was a lot of steam coming off this lake (there is only a little mist shown) but we think it's called Phantom Lake because in the Phantom of the Opera Christine sings "I remember there was mist, swirling mist upon a vast glassy lake..."
Bison
Moose
Bison (notice what he's doing?) This one was Anthony's favorite
Whenever the bison crossed the road they took their sweet time. This one just stood there for a good two minutes
Everyone was getting ridiculously close to this elk. I only have it zoomed a little bit and actually cropped a couple people that were standing in front of me out of the photo.
This is a different elk. As you can see by the blur at the bottom of the photo I was sitting in the car, no zoom used. We were driving and noticed this elk and stopped to get a quick photo. He looked right up at us then started shaking his head and running right at the car. We had the camera set on quick capture so I got about 6 quick photos of him running at us before I started yelling "drive, drive, drive!!!!" at Anthony. The car was in park and it took us an extra couple of seconds to actually drive away. Luckily the elk was just trying to scare us and arced before he actually got to the car. Needless to say my heart was in my nose for about 5 minutes.
It was SO cold and when Anthony got up to go to the bathroom I scooched over to his sleeping bag and stole ALL the extra blankets I could.
Paint pots bubbling (why do they call them paint pots and not mud pots?)
More bubbling mud
I liked how some mud just bubbled a bit but this one shot the mud quite high
Different colors from the algae and bacteria
Mama bison kissing her baby (or at least that is what it looks like)
Bison and her older calf

Spring (I don't remember which one)

Old Faithful. It's called Old Faithful because it is car enough away from other geysers that it has it's own "plumbing" and doesn't have any other geysers taking the water meant for this one. It used to be every hour on the hour but after the earthquake it now erupts every 70 some-odd minutes.

Another Spring
More algae and bacteria in the same area
This one is actually called Black Spring because the water used to be black
Back in the day this area used to be called "hook & cook" becasuse people would hook a fish in the lake then swing around and cook it in the spring. (You can see how close the lake water is compared to the steam from the spring)
There was still snow up on Mt. Washburn
Anthony stepped in buffalo poop!
Bear tracks near Prismatic spring
Rainbow
Mountain Goat
Climbing trees

Mountain goat and kid


Bald Eagle
Bald Eagle nest (right in the middle of the photo, you can see the eaglet in the middle it you look close)
It was POURING rain when we hiked down to the brink of Lower Falls
Lower falls from the viewpoint
Pelican

Canadian Geese
Bison
Anthony w/ a HUGE fresh buffalo chip
How do Buffalo scratch an itch you ask?
They find a tree w/ close brances
This one reminds us of "Ice Age" when Sid is trying to make a fire and hits himself in the eye with a stick.
Even buffalo like the warm water coming down from the open springs
Our last day we still hadn't seen any wolves even though we'd driven up and down Lamar Valley and the Blacktail area countless times. The last night I said a little prayer telling Heavenly Father I hadn't seen a wolf yet and it was the thing I was most excited to see when we decided to come and I'd still really like to see one and the next morning we drove just a little ways up Lamar Valley before leaving the park and there, in the middle of a field all by himself was a wolf. (It's the grey/red dot right in the smack dab middle of the photo). While it was kind of a silly faith builder it sure showed my our Father in Heaven listens when we ask him things, no matter how small.
Grizzlie sow
The grizzlies 2 year old cub (the Ranger said this is the last year the cub would be with the sow)
Tetons
Tetons at Oxbow
THE END

All in all we saw loads and loads of bison, tons of elk but only 4 bulls, 3 grizzlies, 8 black bears and only 2 of the 8 didn't have cubs, 2 moose, 1 wolf, a handful of mule deer and mountain goats and various other animals. We had a pretty decent week!!