Today’s blog entry comes courtesy of Mr. Munro:
Last night, Tuesday, we went to the rodeo. Great fun. Very professional. It only lasted 2 hours but there was bareback, saddle, bull riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, roping and there were kids chasing calves that had ribbons on their tails. There were also clowns. The cowboys and girls travel anywhere up to 48 hours to compete at the Cody Nite Rodeo.
We drove into Yellowstone from Cody where we passed a large meadow full of fire trucks, tents, porta loos, and firemen to fight the forest fire on the border of the park. We later found out that they are going to let it burn out naturally, unless it posses a risk to the Park or buildings. It was exactly 20 years ago to the day that a huge forest fire decimated Yellowstone, over one million acres of forest destroyed. The re growth is very slow. Luckily the wind was kind and it hasn’t affected our stay in Yellowstone.
We’ve seen bison, lots of bison [no threat of extinction there] to the extent that they roam across the road holding up traffic. They are not tame, each year a number of stupid tourists get the ultimate close up and are gored in the process. We saw a fox, coyote, badger, bald eagles/osprey, trout, bambies and tourists. We did see a grizzly bear that was sleeping off its meal of bison. That carcass was about 20 metres from the bear which was hidden by long grass. Every now and then it would stick its head up and did get up and wander around for a few seconds before laying down again. There must have been about 40 cars parked along the verge of the road trying to take photos. Waste of time as the bear was more than 100 metres from the road. The Park rangers were trying to keep the traffic moving but sightings are rare so everyone wanted to see. They have their own policing within the National Park service and watch out if you exceed the speed limit. Besides, if you travel too fast you’ll miss the scenery and wildlife.
Related posts:
It’s been ages since I’ve been to Yellowstone…40 years ago this year. The scenery looks the same, except you’ve been very lucky with all the animal sightings. A badger! I’ve never seen a real, live badger in the wild (zoos don’t count).
It’s true that wherever there are wild animals there are silly people who have to get up close…and then there are consequences to be had.
Nice to see Mr. Munro was sensible taking his photo of the grizzly from a distance.
by Barbara Martin August 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm