Wild West Earlventure: Yellowstone (leg 4)

Hey there!  It's your favorite traveling Frenchie, Brutus.  Mom & Dad are so busy exlporing Yellowstone NP that I felt obligated to pick up the slack and blog about what we've seen already here. 

We've seen and gotten to photograph many of the area's wildlife at surprisingly close range!  Here's a bison sticking out his tongue at us!

And these are baby bison!  Aren't they cute??  Don't know the correct term for them (bisonlettes? bisonlings? beats me...), but unfortunately they'll grow up to be the same beasts as their parents.  Pretty adorable for now, though!

We had a special treat of catching a glimpse of a bald eagle sitting in the nest - we also saw one fledgling, just getting ready to leave the nest.

There were lots of elk,

And we watched the (mule) deer and the antelope play.  Hey that sounds catchy - bet they'd make good words to a song...

Anyways, mom got many of these images from a great vantage point - Big Earl's family room window.  This worked well for several reasons, partly because his height gave her an advantage over all the cars & people also trying to get the same shot.  It also happened to be raining pretty much constantly, so it was nice to experience nature without getting it all over us!

Which brings me to a beef I have with the National Parks.  This pesky sign is everywhere!  What's up with that????  Dogs are only allowed in parking lots, on streets or in 100 feet thereof. 

So the majority of my experience had to be gained through the window!

I love my vantage point on the couch and all, but how about letting a guy experience nature??

And that stupid sign also dictated that this is the closest I could get to Old Faithful (the hump under the steam in the background).   "No pets in the thermal basins" they say.  Don't these ranger people understand they are depriving a citizen of seeing the great wonders of his country???

What is that you say - dogs aren't technically citizens?? Hmpf.    So that means the only glimpse of a bison I can get looks like this.

Even sleepy ol' Mason got a little excited about seeing the bison and wanted to get closer.  I'm just guessing, but I think he was under the impression that they were some kind of giant squirrel based on his reaction!  I've heard they make dog food out of these guys, and apparently Mason was hankering foe some!

So all my up-close-and-personal nature encounters had to be outside the park boundaries.  Thankfully the town of West Yellowstone was a great place, made lots of friends there!

In fact I came to prefer a little tamer kind of "wildlife" as seen in town.  Look at this nice bison I made friends with while on a walk.

And these moose (mooses??) stood guard just outside our RV park.  We never did see a real moose, so I was pretty impressed by these guys.  Felt kind of a kinship with them.  Must have something to do with their striking ears...

And thankfully this was the only Grizzly that any of us got anywhere near. There was others along for the ride (Grandma...) that were convinced we'd be eaten by bears at some point during our trip (and that would put a damper on things), and apparently she started to rub off on me!  I had to keep checking over my shoulder that no real bears came to investigate (mom had left the Bear-B-Gone back in the coach)!

So that about covers it for now.  There's plenty of spare time for me & Mason here, as we have to stay in Big Earl every time all the humans go off exploring.  Guess I shouldn't complain; this is leagues better than the "spa" Mason & I got imprisoned in pampered by last summer when they went to Sequoia and Death Valley National Parks.  

Maybe I just need to pull my best "adorable me" face for a few rangers and I can get some more privileges in the park??  Like this:

Singing off for now, this is Brutus the Traveling Frenchie signing off from the wild West!  There's lots more to come, so stay tuned for more from Yellowstone and the rest of our Earlventure!