A Bison and an Elk. About 1 hour after you've entered Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Cool eh? That's what I thought. And it only got better. 3 days in Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP and this is the list of wildlife that I spotted:
- Bison
- Black Bear
- Grizzly Bear
- Elk
- Moose
- Coyote
- Wolf
- Ground Squirrel
- Bald Eagle
- Pelican
- Trout
sometimes you have to be content with as much as you can see in a short period. Worth it though.... heaps of cool wildlife and fantastic scenery... guess that's why it's so popular and the reason it became the first national park so many years ago. Check out more pics from Yellowstone and Grand Teton here.
I think last time I was with you all, we were on the highway on our way to the Badlands NP. Badlands was interesting, a dramatic landscape carved by wind, rain and snow over time to create a series of sculptured walls overlooking prairie typed lands providing habitat for Bison, Deer, Prairie Dogs and hundreds of birds and other creatures.
Just to be at a place called the Badlands was probably the reason we went.
From Badlands we make a quick stop at Mt Rushmore - along with a million other tourists, mostly Americans paying homage to the heads of 4 presidents carved at of the granite rock face. I mean sure it's impressive, but why?? Why??
Seattle - sometimes it's nice to do something different than the usual tourist stuff in a city. We spent a few days with some new friends Micah and Jenny (wonderful hosts) walking around the local area, listening to live music and playing Frisbee Golf. Think there might be a challenger to lawn bowls for a sport that you can drink beers and wear whatever you like at the same time as competing with mates.. Micah in action.....
From Seattle to Vancouver for a few days. More time to just relax and enjoy the wonderful weather, walk in Stanley Park, chuckle at the locals at the beach, watch some cricket (really!) and drink some beers (what's new?).
I've driven the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia heaps of times and always with awe at it's spectacular scenery. What we experienced from Vancouver to Banff, has to be on par with that. Different type of scenery but spectacular none the less and oh so worth it to have taken the long road through BC, via Whistler and Kamloops. Rugged mountains, picturesque lakes, beautiful cascading rivers.. oh, and the Black Bear that we saw just off the side of the road, absolutley awesome. Of course, we shouldn't have got so excited if we had have known we were going to see 2 moose swimming in a lake at Sun Peaks followed by 5 black bears including a sow and two cubs (climbing trees!)..
They say a picture tells a thousands words... so to save me explaining the majesty of the Icefields Parkway I'll just give you a couple of pictures...
After the spectacular scenery of Jasper and Banff, it was on to Calgary for the Stampede... for craziness and hilarity.
Our amazing hosts, Gerry and Karen, were more excited than us to have some Australian travelers staying at their house... I think it was like they had kids again! We didn't complain... As Gerry would say, how often does it happen that you run into some people and invite them to stay at your house and they actually take up the offer..... We thought since they'd invited us (in Montreal of all places!) we better make the effort.... And we were highly rewarded for taking the detour to Calgary..
We watched rodeo, chuck wagons, ate corn dogs, drank beers, went to Cowboys (an institution of the stampede where girls serve drinks in Cowboy hats (and not much else), went to birthday parties, rode the train, had breakfast at the local golf course, made friends with the family and of course partied like Karen had urged us ("you boys should light a fire under this town!")... Needless to say, hilarity ensued.....
We would have loved to have stayed for longer, and Karen to have us for longer too, but we had to fly, time restrictions you know... So that's when we headed to Yellowstone for those awesome experiences of northern hemisphere wildlife......
So now in Boulder, Colorado and heading to Vegas once we get this stinkin' car registration sorted (to be told another time...)
