Day 62

What a glorious day! You will find the photos will depict the the natural wonders of Yellowstone with more grace than can language. Onboard the tour I joined I made friends with many families and travelers from the world over. One gal on the bus from the Netherlands with whom I chatted over the provided picnic lunch explained how new and alive our continent especially Yellowstone is. Europe is an old continent... its is settled... you don’t see the elements at work to reconstruct the landscape and build mountains out of meadows. Our tour guide Gary, a delightful man... very knowledgeable and kind, works in Yellowstone as a tour guide in the summers and spends the winters in Barbados as a scuba diving instructor. The tour took us on the northern loop of the park and lasted over eight hours. One reason I chose this tour was because it went up to the Larame Valley where the Fosters had told me was the most beautiful part of the park and the least travelled, the second reason is that this tour didn’t leave till noon meaning I could sleep and eat at leisure:-) The Larame Valley is spectacular and the tour took us to many of the most magnificent spots on Earth! The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Lower Falls, the many rivers and the re-growing forests, the geysers and the hot spring mounds, the Buffalo, the Bears and the Elk. We were most fortunate to have some wonderful critter sightings. Grizzly Bear with her two cubs right up close caused what they call a “bear jam” as everyone stops to take pictures. The rangers frantically try to keep traffic moving and make sure no human animals get too close to the bear animals. We saw Eagles and Eaglets in their nests. We saw Elk with 6 point antlers! Coyotes that almost looked like wolves, and many great buffalo including one that walked right out in front of our bus and we had to slam down hard on the breaks. Many thanks to Anita and her husband and daughter for emailing me some of their photos from the tour that turned out better than mine and because towards the end of the tour my battery died. Special thanks to Gary our guide.

I got back to my room just a bit before Jonas also returned. He had gone on a tour as well and we stayed up for quite some time chatting and I listened to many of his ideas and observations about Europe, the US, and our societies.