Yellowstone Day 2

On our second day in Yellowstone, we battled three things: sore muscles, road construction, and rain. The sore muscles didn’t keep us from most of our adventures, but the rain and construction slowed us down. We started with a trip out through Lamar Valley. Since Slough Creek had been so good to us the night before, we drive out that way again. Within a few minutes, we spotted two small black bears that had been booted out by their mother earlier this year. They were still hanging around together, and they were pretty close to us.

One of the brother bears that we saw.

They were hanging out together near the road.

After a construction stop, we continued out through the valley. We were looking hard for wolves or grizzlies, but we couldn’t seem to spot either one, though we did see several more black bears.

The pronghorn were really pretty.

This little guy climbed the sagebrush to watch us.

We spotted these grizzlies a million miles away.

Mom had her eye on a new trail that headed out through Lamar Valley. It was appropriately called Lamar Valley Trail. It started right where we’d seen the badgers the year previous, but they weren’t around. After around a half mile, the trail was entirely blocked by buffalo. It was almost as if the herd was hemming us in and keeping us from the trail. We tried taking a short detour like we’d done with the elk on the Beaver Ponds hike, but they were having none of it. Finally, we gave up and walked back to the trailhead.

Doesn't it look like a beautiful place to hike?

There was a cool bridge, but the buffalo sentries guarded the trail.

It seemed like they were doing it on purpose. Don't mess with buffalo.

We knew that our favorite Yellowstone hike, Trout Lake, wouldn’t disappoint. The boys practically scampered up the trail because they were so excited to see what the lake held for us this day. Mom and Seth traced a muskrat right along the bank for about 50 yards. At one point, Seth was nearly close enough to pet him! Mark spotted a snake slinking through the tall grass. Meanwhile Dax spent his time searching the reeds for frogs and fish. Dad contented himself with watching two young bucks browse in the meadow. As usual, Trout Lake was a winner. 

We always get the best reflection photos at Trout Lake.

This eye-catching butterfly posed for us.

Seth's muskrat was hard at work.

Dad barely got a photo of the bucks he spotted.

We saw this buck back by the parking lot after the Trout Lake hike.

Dax spotted a few mountain goats out toward Cooke City as we finished our picnic lunch. Then we made the long drive back to Lake, where we were checking in for the day.  We spotted a few more bears, bringing our total to 15. We watched a coyote run through the valley for a little bit, but by this time, it was raining pretty hard.We did stop during a brief rain break to take our picture at Artist Point and look at the viewpoint for Upper Falls.

We saw a few mountain goats.

Dax has to scooch all the way up to let Seth out.

We stopped at Calcite Springs to look at the river.

We didn't see mountain goats at the springs, but the overlook was nice.

Mom was a fan of the wild flowers.

Dax ran down and took a pic of Tower Falls while the rest of us were in the bathroom.

We saw this bear while driving through construction again.

She had two cubs! So cute!

Here's the coyote!

This is tradition to take a photo here.

Upper Falls overlook

Cutest Mom and Dad around!

During the long, rainy drive we spotted this ragged looking bald eagle. Wow!

We stopped for dinner at our favorite restaurant at Fishing Bridge. Seth bought a wolf in the giftshop with his birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa. Then he promptly named him Marshall. With Marshall in tow, we walked across the bridge and spotted an otter. We tried to drive out a little bit to look for wildlife, but unfortunately, the rain was picking up again. Mom bought a pack of playing cards at the Lake Village giftshop and we headed back to our cabin. We contented ourselves with playing Hearts and Spades for the rest of the evening. And don't forget the game of crazy Panorama pictures that the boys think is hilarious. See below for details! 

Our favorite little diner unfortunately didn't have fries tonight, but the food was still good.

Meet Marshall the newest addition to Seth's animal collection.

The river otter was really far away.

We spotted some swans in the rain.

And a great blue heron.

And a bull elk!

There was some reading during the rainstorm.

And lots of game playing!

We had fun!

We like Dad's hair in this panorama picture.