Sept 7-Mon - day 32
West Yellowstone, Montana
Weather - low 45 (8C) to high 60s (19C) cloudy with gusty winds (rumors of freezing temps tonight)



Last night there was a beautiful sunset; old mariners rule is “Red sky at night sailor’s delight, red sky in morning sailor’s take warning.” How true, the way the wind was blowing today any mariner would have loved it and got a lot of mileage out of it too. :O)



Housekeeping day today…attacked the laundry and finished it along with some other tasks. We surprised ourselves (well sort of) by still managing to get out for three-hours in the late afternoon. The weekend tourists seemed to have vacated West Yellowstone; the traffic in the park settled down…the holiday was over.



We saw one osprey, several elk, three bison, a mystery hawk and I missed a snake I was trying to shoot. I spotted the snake about fifty feet away, jumped out of the car to get a shot, and that sucker was having nothing to do with getting its picture taken. Dang, missed that one….know for sure it wasn’t a rattler (no buttons)…. its tail was long and pointy.



The thrill for today was rounding a corner and seeing a bison 150 yards up the road heading for us AND we had a wide pull-out so I turned in. All in position (in the car – no way we were getting out) and Racine starts snapping, while I leave the car in gear with my foot on the gas. The bison is now running at us, kicking up dust and Racine says, “Carl…CARL” (still snapping shots of course). As I quickly pulled towards the road the bison ran past us, leaving just a couple of feet between it and the us. Lots of adrenaline pumping that time!



Up the road we went, and we finally found an osprey in not so good light. We spent some time trying to get a photo, finally gave up, and turned toward home as we wanted to catch-up on the blog and photo postings.



Along the way home we spotted a hawk, a variety as yet unseen by either of us. Not a red-tailed hawk, much too large, not an immature eagle, a bit too small. We are currently checking all our bird books and the Internet. The images we got were poor, it was a long way off …oh well, we can only hope to see one again on another day.



Despite the stops we really were getting closer to home…..at the Madison junction we saw what we believe was the bison that set our adrenaline pumping earlier. It covered a lot of ground and we still have no explanation why it was running. Saw a few more elk on the way home and another day ended. The adventure continues…



To see more of 'The Great Adventure 2009' images click HERE



To see more of our animal images click here: Animal Gallery