Wednesday, June 20

We slept late this morning and had breakfast at the little café on the road facing the park (Phillip and I usually have breakfast here when we are in Gardiner).  We then went back into the park to see Mammoth Hot Springs which was a bit of a disappointment.  It was very dry compared to our other visits.  We don’t know if this is a seasonal change or a change in the underlying plumbing. 

We were looking at a branch that fell into the water and is now coated with something.....

....and Jayden dropped his monocular into the water...the water was hot and contained who knows what kind of bacteria, acid, chemicals....yuk!  But Pop stretched out on the walkway and reached his hand in and saved Jayden's monocular....Our HERO!

We drove over to Tower Falls so that we could get a campsite (this is one of the camping areas that doesn't take reservations).  As we were nearing the campgrounds, we saw a group gathered by Roosevelt Lodge so we stopped.  They were looking at a big black bear.  Jayden and I both got a good look at the bear, but no pictures...

We got the last  campsite at Tower Falls, settled in and had a picnic lunch.  Our spot is next to a creek so we went out for a little exploring.   We saw a few otters on the rocks across the creek from where we were standing.  We then decided to do a little more exploring before dark, so we left some items to hold our spot, and headed to Lamar valley.  At this point in our trip, we still have not seen a wolf.  As usual, there are a lot of bison in the valley – huge herds on both sides of the road.  I was hoping the bison would be on the road again, but they weren’t.  However, Jayden spotted an elk!  He was huge, but really hard to see because he blended in with the trees.  That Jayden is such a good spotter!

Lamar Valley is so pretty....and so alive with wildlife...

I love these two pictures of Jayden with his equipment.  First of all because he has all of the binoculars/spotting scopes that we brought on him, and second because of that little smirky smile on his face.  I love that smirky smile :)

We had originally planned to drive into Red Lodge, but decided that was too much driving and turned around right before getting to Cooke City.  On the way back we saw a man and woman with big spotting scopes and decided to stop and see if they had spotted a wolf.  They had not, but as we suspected, they were also looking for wolves.  A truck pulled into the parking area and the guy asked if we were looking for wolves and said that he had gotten some cool pictures just down the road.  Of course he offered to show the pictures to Jayden – that boy is loved by rangers and strangers J  We were all excited and headed back to the spot that he described.  Sure enough, we found a small group at a pullout just down the road.  They had the wolf in their sights, but he was very hard to spot.  Finally I spotted him while using the new Nikon Binoculars, so Jayden set them up on the tripod.  It was really cool watching him.  The wolf  was watching 5 pronghorns.  We had learned in the ranger program that the wolf will find the adults and then zig-zag back and forth in the area around them, looking for the babies in the grass.   This is exactly what this wolf was doing.  It was so interesting to watch him in action!  Then a couple of the adult pronghorns started running off and the wolf went after them, but they were too fast.

Back at the campsite I cooked fried canned ham (yuk, actually Jayden said it was good) and barbeque beens. We had a good fire going, so we were able to have roasted marshmellows for dessert. It is pretty chilly out, so we made hot chocolate and then went to the amphitheater for a program on bears. Afterwards we got in the truck, watched ghost busters again and then slept. This is the coldest night so far - down to 30 degrees.  Jayden was really tired, so we let him sleep in the next morning while we enjoyed a cup or two of coffee....

BTW:  The weather has been wonderful the entire trip.  Highs from the mid 50's to the low 60's and Lows in the mid 30's.  It has been sunny the entire time and we had a couple of pretty windy days.