くまはねむっていた。- The bears were sleeping. 🐻

My travel journal continues

(summer trip to Yellowstone).

🔸️Day 7, Part 2:

After visiting Norris Geyser Basin we drove over to another part of the park in search of wildlife (mainly bears). We had a picnic on the Yellowstone River. There are such great picnic areas in the park! This one was overlooking the river and you could get down to it and get into the water. It was cool, but as thee day had turned rather hot, it was very refreshing.

A little further, there are thermal areas near the river (mud pots). People are restricted from getting off trail there, for good reason. The prime area for wildlife watching in that part of the park is Hayden Valley. It is a large valley with sweeping vistas (photo #3). I had observed bears there on previous occasions, but this time all we saw were bison (picture #4 shows the typical bison traffic jam) and a bald eagle (no picture as the one I took is pretty small, it was too far away for my lens).

We then headed back towards camp. On the way we stopped at Terrace Springs, a series of small springs that empty into a lake. There were great spots to stop along the Gibbon River. If you ask me what paradise looks like, I will point you to photo #8. Those evening views were simply breathtaking. It was strikingly calm, most tourists were already gone for the day. Again, we were searching for wildlife, but saw just one more bald eagle. 

I drove a bit further following the river and came upon a small traffic jam. Apparently a bear was sighted not long ago. Again, we were unlucky. However, I stopped once more by the river to marvel at the sunset. After all that, we had to rush back to camp to cook dinner while we still had some daylight... 😃

Have a great weekend (and I need to get some sleep now)! 🌍🌜