Howdy folks!
Welcome to the weekly installment
of the Wandering Wilson’s Wanderings and such, brought to you by Dep and LA
Looks, you’re always looking good with LA Looks. On this week’s installment we
will discuss Pronghorn, Black Bears, Hoodoo’s, caves, Old Faithful and the Old
Faithful Inn, and various other magnificence including waking up at 3……..am……you
read that right, 3AM. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did……do…….are
enjoying……havingness…..whatever.
Jesssssssss
misssssesssss Mr. Roy’s salsa, it’s not very good up here atall.
In
beginning we went out to a lovely destinanation for those who wish to watch
animals such as Bison bison (more
commonly known as Bison), Pronghorn Antelope (who aren’t actually Antelope at
all), Bears of various nature (Ursus
arctos horribilis and Ursus
americanus amongst others) and even the much loved Canis lupus. When we found a spot from which to observe the Pronghorn
Antelope, our target for the night, we settled in to see how they would behave
over the next few hours while we were watching. The group began with two
females sitting in the grass and very quickly grew to six females and one male.
After a few more minutes another male showed up (a few hundred yards away) and
the original male began the chase to scare him off. They ran around for quite
some time at a very high speed. Eventually the chase brought them close enough to
us that we could hear them grunting and snorting at each other as the sprinted
through the sage brush about 20 yards away. We stood there in awe as they
darted across the road immediately in front of us. On our way home we decided
to stop and see if we could see any bears at their usual spots. We stopped by
the petrified tree and saw a black bear staring down two mule deer bucks. That
was fun to watch.
We’ll
be right back after a word from our sponsor’s…..Use Dep if you want your hair
to withstand hurricane force winds, DEP!
Alright
and we’re back! There is a beautiful spot that we have gone on a hike through
which we discussed in an earlier post, it is called the Hoodoos. The name is a
complete misnomer because hoodoos are actually a formation carved by wind and
rain whereas these hoodoos were most likely created by an earthquake and the
greatness that is the freeze/thaw cycle. Basically it’s a huge field of massive
tumbled boulders. It’s perfect for climbing around in and ‘sploring as Jess
puts it. We went climbing around for a bit, I went bouldering and Jess took
pictures. It was a blast. While we were climbing around we found a cave where
some of the larger boulders fell together and created a pretty big hole. What
else do we have to do but climb inside. It was pretty deep and significantly
cooler than outside the cave. It didn’t really go anywhere that we could fit
but at one point Jess kicked a rock and we heard it drop and bounce off other
rocks for what sounded like a good 6 feet then it splashed in some water. It
was very impressive.
This
brings us to Sunday. As most of you that may be reading this know we are
members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fortunately for us
there happens to be a small congregation in Gardiner, Montana which is about an
8 minute drive from our dorm to the front door of the church. Compared to our
church at home which was about 200 people every Sunday this branch is a
consistent 25-30 people on a weekly basis. When we got here we requested that
our records be sent up here so we could help out the branch in whatever way
possible. Our records showed up on Sunday so we are now officially members of
the Gardiner, Montana Branch in the Bozeman, Montana Stake. It’s kind of cool
to be in such a small unit of the church. We pretty much know everyone and the
Spirit is awesome. We’ve also met some really cool people who have welcomed us
into their homes and shared some great times with us. Most recently we were
introduced to “suicide badminton.” It is a very intensely humiliating game that
we played last night for Family Home Evening. Jess and I were terrible. But it
was a blast.
Now for
another word from our sponsors, LA Looks!
We’d
like to thank our sponsors Dep and LA Looks for their generous support. Sunday
night we got lucky and were able to book a room at the Old Faithful Inn for the
night. This was Jess’s birthday present from me.
We were also planning on
waking up early to try and catch the Photo Safari from the Lake Yellowstone
Hotel, on the opposite side of the lower loop…..it’s about an hour and a half
away with no traffic. The Photo Safari leaves at 5:45 in the AM. Despite this
early start we meandered around the Old Faithful Inn enjoying the fiddle
playing and pianist before we set out to explore the Upper Geyser Basin as it
is known. It truly is an amazing place with boiling water that is the deepest ,
purest blue you’ve ever seen pouring out of the ground sometimes at a rate of
100 gallons per hour from one spring. Sometimes the smells are a little
overpowering but the views are worth it. As the sun set and it began to cool
off the geysers and hot pools began to show some steam and when looking down
the valley to the north of Old Faithful you could a series of steam clouds
rising from the various geysers. It was truly amazing and a wondrous sight to
behold.
My trusty alarm unfortunately went off as planned, at 3:00am and we
started the long trek to Lake Yellowstone Hotel. On the way we got a beautiful
view of the moon setting and the sun rising over the mountains. We saw two
coyotes run across the road just ahead of us and saw several Bison and Elk
sleeping with spitting distance from the road (yes that is an appropriate measure
of distance). We actually arrived at the hotel an hour early and found out
there wasn’t enough room for the two of us to take the photo safari trip. So,
with heads hanging down we made the long drive back to Mammoth Hot Springs. We
made a few stops along the way to view the sunrise from a few opportune spots.
Despite the early hour it was a lovely drive and I am grateful we did that
trip.
That
just about sums up our adventures over the past week. We hope everyone out
there is safe and healthy and avoiding those crazy forest fires. Stay safe and
use your brains, you have them for a reason!
Loves,
Michael and Jess!
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