Welcome to Day 18. It started innocently enough…us looking for a good cup of coffee to help us wake up on our way to Yellowstone. Can you believe that there was only ONE coffee shop open at 9:45 in Jackson Hole (out of 4 or 5)? And that little coffee shop was clearly overwhelmed by the crowd of Sunday morning zombies out for their cup of Joe. Our order for a cup of chai took almost 30 minutes to fill! The single barista seemed to work in slow motion. So different than New York.

Oxbow bend the way it should be seen. Look at the beautiful aspens!

Once we had our chai, we headed to Yellowstone to see all the geysers and springs that we missed a few days ago.Today was warm and I think all the animals were out in celebration. It seemed that we ran into “animal jams” every few minutes on the road. We saw a moose couple out for their morning stroll. The female seemed agitated by all the cars and people trying to take a look and did a half-hearted charge toward the line of cars. Some people moved. Some didn’t. People are disrespectful and crazy around the animals in the park.

He stayed back while his mate took care of warning the crowd!

We also saw lots of pronghorns, a small heard of elk, and TONS of bison. We’ve gotten to the point where bison, pronghorns, and even elk (unless it’s a male), have become boring. That’s how common they are. The bison roam free throughout the park and despite warnings posted all over the place, people get all up in their business. The rule is to stay at least 25 yards away at all times.

A herd decided they wanted to cross the geyser boardwalk and people crowded them. A young bison called to his mother/father who was trying to avoid the people that were in his way. The herd finally crossed (and comically slipped on the recycled plastic planks as they did) and people continued to crowd. We waited, ready to witness a goring, but a ranger was nearby who screamed on top of her lungs “GET BACK! 25 YARDS! GET BACK!” Check out this video Billy took of the event. You can hear the ranger in the background.

Look at the annoying/crazy people standing less than 20 feet away from this bull!

Other than the hoards of really annoying people, we had a pleasant day in the park. I took even MORE photos of the pools and geysers. I find them so intriguing. We even managed to catch the eruption of one of the geysers that only erupts every 7 to 15 hours!

Bill finds geysers a little less exciting than me (or a lot less).

The Aurum Geyser was pretty cool. You can see the water boiling inside the cone. I’m not sure if the objects in pool are actual rocks or if they are some sort of sediment.

Billy and the Giant Geyser (that didn’t erupt while we were there).

The Belgian Pool was another favorite. I wish I knew how deep it is. Looks bottomless.

The ride to our lodging for the night was punctuated by several animal jams. At one point, we were stopped for 10 minutes to wait for a giant bison bull to get out of the middle of the street. It was as if he knew what he was doing. A giant “up yours” for all the harassment that he and members of his herd have to endure all day every day. It made me happy 🙂

A bison we passed on our way out of the Tetons.

Tomorrow we explore other areas of Yellowstone. The park is so immense, I feel like you need a week here to see all there is to see. We hope to see a wolf before we leave! They are all over the park, so they say. Wish us luck!