Baby Elk

I went by the Hooved Animal Enclosure at Fleming Park last weekend. They have Buffalo and Elk out there, and the name lacks elegance, but I don't have a better suggestion.

People go and feed the elk through the fence. They mostly feed them carrots and this has totally tamed the animals. They will lick your fingers and take the food right out of your hands. If you really want a good friend, slice up an apple and feed that to them.

They are doing what Elk herds do this time of the year, they have a bull and he's got his harem. I think some younger bulls are around, unless they were shipped off, I didn't see them up by the fence. When I pulled up the bull bellowed, which is one of the coolest sounds you will ever hear.

The family that was there just finished feeding all their carrots to the elk, and the youngest elk was still trying to get something from the mother. I don't remember ever seeing them this young out there before. It seems odd that the bull is in rut (that time of the year when they loose weight, get agressive, and mate with the females) while there are still calves mixed in with the herd. You'd think the bull would run the little guys off in order to get busy with their mommies.

I'm not an elkologist, so I don't know.

Strange Fungus

The neighboring house has been vacant for about 4 years and the yard rarely gets mowed. I recently saw something I've never seen before, which is fungus growing at the base of an oak tree. These are some huge funguses. They look like brains.

I have heard that fungus and mushroom species are usually matched with a particular tree species. Mushroom hunters will tell you, for example, that the favored mushroom, the Morrell, is usually found where Elm trees have fallen and rotted.

I'm not sure what the story on these specimens is.

Siberian Tigers

The Siberian Tiger is almost extinct. There are only a few hundred left. Many people thought that it would be gone very soon.

They live in an area from eastern Russia to China. The Russians recently hired some game wardens that have been suppressing the poachers that were hunting and killing off the tiger. This is making a difference and they are making a dramatic comeback.

This year, there are over 100 cubs, and they are making signs of a comeback.

I hope it works.

They look cute when they are little, but I wouldn't want one as a pet. You'd probably have to buy a side of beef once a week to keep it fed.

Iranian Cheetahs

Luke Hunter is the Coordinator of the Great Cats Program, and he is currently working on saving the Asiatic Cheetah found in a desert area in Iran.

There aren't many left, but they are radio tracking them and trying to learn more so they can come back.

Cheetahs at one time were kept as hunting pets by Egyptians and Indian Princes. You can't breed Cheetahs in captivity because the female has to run for a few days, chased by males before she can even be able to get pregnant and start making baby cheetahs. So in the old days, they would find Cheetah kittens in the wild and raise them for hunting animals. There was a Prince in India that had over 100 of them. I guess they made great pets, but you had to keep raiding the wild ones if you wanted more.

The Geoquiz on PRI told me about this issue, and you can read about it at http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/13231 with the answer at the link below
http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/13231&answer=true

The podcast I heard it on had a Cheetah purring, which is a really cool sound. The web link only has the answer to the quiz, but the question, which has the cheetah purring, is not there. Email me and I will email the mp3 file from the podcast or you can subscribe to the PRI Geoquiz and listen to the October 10, 2007 quiz for the purring sound.

I hope we can stop them for disappearing. They are just too cool of an animal to get wiped out.

The Great Pumpkin

People love to grow pumpkins. It's the biggest fruit or vegetable (whatever it is) that people grow.

Each year, people have a contest to grow the world's biggest pumpkin, and this guy, Joe Jutras, did it this year with a 1,689 pound pumpkin, 187 pounds bigger than last years record. See: http://www.pumpkinnook.com/giants/giantpumpkins.htm

These pumpkins aren't even purely pumpkins anymore. They have been crossbred with squashes to get this big. They are so big that they sometimes grow over 50 pounds in one day and start to bend and collapse under their own weight.

I recently listened to an interview of a person that wrote a book on growing these huge pumpkins, and you can tell that people are obsessed with it. You can listen to the interview at http://www.sciam.com/podcast/index.cfm?e_type=13 and click on the October 31st episode of Science Talk. The author, Susan Warren, wrote the book Backyard Giants. Her website is www.backyardgiants.com.

Pumkin Obsession: tell me about it. We do the same thing ever since a friend threw her old pumpkins in our compost heap a few years back and the volunteer plants the next year yielded huge pumpkins.

Linus would be proud.

Four Seasons

Sometimes, when I watch the seasons shift, I think about how they are like the stages in your life. I was thinking about it again when I noticed all the fall colors finally fading and shifting into a winter looking landscape.

Spring is like childhood, everything is growing, new, and exciting. You feel youthful and invigorated, the world is full of growth and purpose.

Summer is like young adulthood, full of vigor and energy. The long days are like the rhytm of those times, full of productivity and long efforts and struggles, but fun and interesting. The heat is like some of the feeling of stress that you wake up to when you start shouldering the responsibilities of life.

Fall is like middle age, when you see a ripening of things, the promise of a full harvest for all the effort and care you have put in. The colors change and you are surprised about how beautiful something can be in the process of ending its time. The weather is colder and you slow down and start taking it easy.

Winter is like old age. People's hair finally turns white, like the snows of winter. Activity is slowed way down and getting things done is a struggle. But it is also warm and safe inside, and all the work done to make a for a comfortable life is now relied on and appreciated. The skeletons of trees remind you of all that is lost, silent monuments to the vigor of life that once was.

And then the next generation comes around and starts their cycle of the seasons of life.

Moray Eel

The Moray Eel has been known by people for a long time, but recently, scientists discovered something new about them.

If you've ever seen the part in the movie Aliens, where the alien's mouth opens up and a little headlike thing with snapping jaws and sharp teeth comes out and goes bite bite bite. Yikes. Science fiction, right? Well guess what....

The Moray Eel has something just like this.

Check it out at:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070905-eel-jaw.html

When the Moray Eel grabs something big, it's back jaw comes forward and helps move the food back into the throat so they can swallow it. A normal fish eats things underwater by swelling up, causing a suction that pulls the food into the mouth. The Moray Eel doesn't have enough size, it's this thin snakelike fish, to create enough suction to pull in food.

So it uses the Alien jaws. Cool.

In the Doghouse

Is UGAVI Greek for Ugly?

The Bridges of Madison County

Yeah, we did the cliche trip while in Iowa last weekend. We visited the bridges of Madison County.

Fall Colors

We hoped to be enjoying the fall colors in the Ozarks 3 weeks ago, but fall was pretty late this year.

The oaks on the way up to Des Moines were the prettiest colors I saw so far this year.

Pumpkin Mania

This local church has the biggest pumpkin spread in town.

However, they also have a lot of pumpkins left over the day before Halloween.

Don't try this at home

This may look casual, but the drop off behind my fearless brother was about 50' straight down a rocky cliff.

It may make a good Match.com picture, but it doesn't do you any good if you fall and turn into a mangled heap in the process. Chicks don't date hamburger.

Where the Spring meets the Current

Here's the view of where the Big Spring outflow goes into the Current River.

Spring water is just so amazingly clear.

Cave Man

He may look primative, but this speciman obviously uses modern clothing and has a grasp of modern technology.

Although he looks like he is at home, the typical Cave Man of this species only spends about 6 minutes of their lives in a cave. And that's no bat guano.

Alley Springs overflow

This is the little stream that goes out the overflow of the Alley Spring pool. There is a little rock in the middle that kicks up a spray of water in the rapids.

Alley Spring

The Alley Spring has a huge and beautiful pool that it come out of. The color of the water was really blue. I like the reflection of the mill on the water, as well as the limb in the water.

Alley Springs Mill

We had to visit the Alley Spring Mill.

They use pictures of this mill on most of the travel brochures for Missouri and it's not hard to see why.

409 Cabin

Here's the cabin we stayed in at Big Spring. # 409, like the cleaner.

It was built in the 30's by the CCC and had a fireplace that smoked up the whole cabin unless you pushed all the wood to the back of the hearth. It was really cool, and I would highly recommend the experience to anyone interested in a little local Missouri flavor in their weekend getaways.

Commuter Spider Chronicles

The commuter spider that I wrote about some time back has finally disappeared on me. He would make a web on my rear view mirror each night, and each morning I would see the new web, then mess it up when I drove to work. He went on a few trips with me. He went to Junction City, Hillsboro Kansas, up to the airport for a long weekend while I was in Cincinnati, and to Big Springs Missouri for an Ozark trip with me. After the airport, I actually saw him fall into the car and he took 3 days to find his way back out to the rear view mirror. I'm not sure what happened, but he finally stopped remaking his web the week after the Big Springs trip. He was my constant companion for about 2 months this summer, and I always enjoyed seeing the evidence that he was still with me each morning. I only actually saw him 4 times. He was pretty shy and hid behind the mirror most of the time. I hope he left in search of spider love and was able to father a new batch of commuter spiders for next year!

River's Edge

This little resort in Eminence Missouri on the Current River was very cool. Looks like they had all kinds of verandas and benches and gazebos for the comfort and enjoyment of the guests. We'd like to go next spring and float the river and stay there.

River Gage

This River Gage was next to the bridge over the Current River in Eminence Missouri. I'm not sure whether the station transmits information back to the center in Rolla Missouri, or whether it stores the information in the little box at the station. It looks very old fashioned, but they have been keeping constant records of the rivers for years, and I can't help but think that they do it with more modern equipment now.

Trail Riding in the Ozarks

These people had some trail horses saddled up waiting for them outside of the kitchy tourist place in Eminence Missouri. I think they have trails along the Current River where you can ride for miles. Looks like something out of the Old West, doesn't it?

Wildlife Photographer

My brother Steve at Big Spring in the Missouri Ozarks.

Stalking the elusive sky blue spring water shot.

Big Spring Moss

Here's another pic from Big Spring south of Van Buren Missouri in the Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozark Region of southern Missouri

There is some beautiful moss on the rocks next to the outlet. The pretty blue color of the water is due to the minerals in the water.

Even though all the water that falls into the "recharge area" of a spring goes underground and is filtered by solid rock (mostly dolomite), minerals and some surface chemicals persist in the water, giving it the pretty blue color.

It makes for some pretty views.

Big Spring Snails

The water coming out of Big Spring south of Van Buren Missouri in the Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozark Region of southern Missouri is 56°F year round. That's pretty cold. Try wading into one of these springs some day if you don't believe me.

But in the winter, that's pretty warm. You wonder what could live in such cold water, and the answer is, strangely, snails. When you look in the water, you see a carpet of black snails.

I did not want to jump in and cuddle up to them.

Fake Snake

We were in the bottoms near the Current River and passed over an old channel. The mucky river bottom was intriguing and we stopped to look it over.

We thought there was a snake slithering over the a rock, see the yellow stripe on the dark rock? We were convinced until we looked at it with the binoculars. It's a root.

Firesong

10/13/2007 6:59 AM

As I write this, I’m sitting in a cabin in the woods near Big Spring Missouri in the early morning hours, next to the fire I woke up and stoked up this morning. The cabin is unheated except for the fireplace, and although it is not midwinter or horribly cold outside, the fire does make the cabin much more hospitable.

As I woke up cold and decided to rekindle the fire, I knew I had to be quiet to allow my wife and brother to continue to sleep. So it was one of those early morning experiences where the silence magnifies every sound that does occur.

Through careful feeding of small sticks and nursing the reluctant coals back to life, I was able to get the fire going again. By the time I was feeding the big pieces in, I was ready for the warmth the fire would bring.

Then I noticed something. This was at a time when I had moved away from the fire and could not see it. There was a sound just like a geyser erupting. If it had not been for the recent trip to Yellowstone that my wife and I took this summer, I probably would not have made the association, but the sound of a branch violently offgassing was very similar to Old Faithful erupting. More on that later.

I moved closer to the fire and could hear more sounds coming out of it. Little high pitched notes, that I had trouble identifying at first. Morning twilight was starting, and the sun was starting to bring a tinge of light to the curtains. This is usually the time of morningsong, when the birds are waking up and start to sing joyously about how beautiful the new day is - at least that’s what I imagine. Maybe they are sharing sports scores or gossiping about the escapades of the night before. In this case, the fire was making those noises. I had never heard (or maybe just never noticed) such an uncanny duplication of the noise from a fire before. In the next 10 minutes, I noticed that the fire made a noise just like a steady strong wind, then it made a sound like a sail or cloth flexing in the wind. It also makes those really loud snaps, which are distinctly a sound from fire. Something about the early morning silence had focused my hearing and concentrated my imagination.

The geyser noises probably aren’t such a mystery, when you stop to consider them. I learned in Yellowstone, from reading the storyboards at various sights, how geysers work. If you think of the groundwater as a lake that has a surface under the ground, that’s a fair start. Rather than a clear surface of a lake you can see, the surface underground is bounded by rock and earth, so it is not as free to move as the skin of your favorite fishing lake. For a geyser to happen, you have to have the intense heat of the earth’s magma. I imagine a red hot arc of material that looks like a loop of your intestine, but I’m not sure how far away or what shape the magma takes. What is important is that it heats up the rocks below the ground, hotter than boiling water. At the beginning of an eruption cycle, this hot spot is underwater. The rock has some cracks, crevices, or holes that go all the way up to the surface, but the are filled with water. Just like your ears are under intense pressure at the bottom of a swimming pool, the water in contact with the hot spot is under pressure from all the water above it. Water under more pressure takes more heat to boil, so you can have superheated water in this region. At some point, the water gets so hot that it finally boils, and something starts the column of water moving upward. Once it starts to move upward, all the weight of the water above comes off the water below. Under pressure, this water was liquid, but without the pressure, the boiling point is quickly reached and the water turns to steam. Steam takes up much more volume that the water it came from, so it expands. This forces the column of water above, already in motion to shoot out of the mouth of the geyser with explosive force.

The sound is distinct, a prolonged rushing whooshing sound. If you’ve ever watched a fire, you’ve seen logs send out jets and streamers of flame. Something inside the log is suddenly trying to escape explosively. Wood is nothing more than a series of tubes, bundled together in a trunk, log, branch, or twig. In the living wood, the tubes carried water and nutrients from the ground to the leaves and back. The core of the tree is old conduits from earlier years, like a tree skeleton. The surface just below the bark is the active living part of the tree where the sap still flows. You cut a tree down and slice it up and stack it in a pile and all the sap that was in the tree doesn’t just pour out of the cut ends. In pine trees, there is some seepage of evaporated sap, or resin, on the ends, but most wood just magically dries up without leaking all the sap out. What happens? Probably two things. The water in the sap makes its way to the cut end and evaporates. In addition, some of it is probably converted into compounds in the resin. The resin eventually renders itself into a hard substance, like amber. That resin is distributed throughout the wood, and it is flammable. It is trapped in the inside of the wood, but under heat, it liquefies. When it finds an open channel to the surface, it boils from the release of pressure and it jets out of the opening, just like a geyser. Same process.

Discovering the mechanism behind the phenomena does nothing to diminish the lovely sound of the geysering wood.

Speakeasy Cave

When I was stationed in Ft. Leonard Wood I had a caving adventure that I do not want to repeat.

I went with a friend to a large cave north of Waynesboro Missouri that was supposed to have been a speakeasy during the prohibition era. What this means is that people would sneak out to the cave to drink back when alcohol was not allowed.

We had to see what the cave was like. When we went inside, we saw that there were multiple passages going off the main cavern. Some passages were marked with ropes, twine, and colored yarn. We could tell that many people had explored the depths of the cave and marked the paths. We picked the largest passage with the most lines going into it and decided to follow it.

My friend, Mark, was very skinny and I was much bigger than him. We followed the cave back to a point where the passage dipped down and went through a small hole near the floor. It looked like it wasn't much bigger than a small pillow. I told Mark the opening was too small for me. He dropped and quickly crawled through the hole. Mark told me it was easy and it got much bigger on the other side. He kept encouraging me to go through the hole. So I went. And for a brief minute, I got stuck. Before some form of panic or terror could take root, I was able to wiggle my shoulder and slip through the hole.

I stood on the other side and looked back at the little hole and realized two things. #1 - if I had gotten stuck in the hole, Mark would have been deeper in the cave and trapped, unable to go for help. #2 - I had to go through the hole again to get out of the cave.

We continued on deeper into the cave, but it stopped being fun. I looked for other strings coming in from other passages, hoping there was an alternate way back out, but there was not. Caves are cold. You have to wear a jacket in a cave, but I remember sweating from the dread of what was coming. When we got back, Mark went through first and I followed. I took off my jacket and squeezed through without as much trouble. So we were able to get out of the cave from there without much more excitement.

We never did go back to the cave, and I can still remember how it felt to almost get trapped.

Commuter Spider

Call me strange, but I really like spiders.

Anything that will eat the insects that are going to bite or sting me is OK with me. I think spiders are like the wolves of the insect world, misunderstood hunters that are hated for no good reason. Actually, they aren't technically insects, they are arachnids

National Geographic had an article some months back about the little glands that spin out webbing, which was fascinating. The webbing silk is made from multiple little glands that mix and combine their output to form different kinds of strands. Some strands are strong and thick, some are thin and strong, and others are sticky to catch insects. They can also wrap up prey and make parachutes from different web materials. Many spiders eat their old web when they go to make a new one. It's all protein, after all. Scientists have studied web silk, trying to copy it. It's lightweight, but incredibly tough. Pound for pound, it's stronger than steel.

Plus there's the whole Spiderman series, which is also really cool.

But the point of this story is to tell about my friend and co-commuter that lives in the rear view mirror on my car. For about 3 weeks now, this little spider makes a new web every night and then is hiding in the morning when I go to work. Right there on the driver's side door, right over my rear view mirror is his perfect little web every morning. I've gone out at night and seen him on his web, and I've seen him peeking around the corner of the mirror sometimes, too. But when I back out of the driveway, he goes somewhere behind the mirror and rides out what must seem like hurricane force winds as I drive to and from work. He's gone out of town with me, too. The little web survives, somewhat tattered, every drive, and so far, he makes a new one every night. I look forward to it.

This morning I noticed that he has a little friend that spins a web about 1/4 the size of the big web and behind it, closer to the door. I don't know if the little guy can survive the commutes.

I guess it's not quite the same as a dog that loves riding in the car with you, but I've come to think of my little spider friend as my pet. I would miss him if he was gone and I always check to make sure he's still with me each morning.

Mystery Puddle

There is a little puddle near where I run. It's a low spot in a little creek where it emerges out from under the road. It looks calm and clear, and stays that way when you drive by it, but it roils when you walk or run by it. Lots of little waves like watching a snake struggling under a sheet.

I'm guessing it's full of frogs, but I haven't seen the animal that makes the waves. I haven't figured out how to solve the mystery yet. I always look at it, and it seems to have waves that would indicate about 3 big bullfrogs, probably jumping in and then swimming around once they are in.

I wonder why they are not spooked by cars, but know that a person's silhouette is something to fear? I will try to figure it out tomorrow when I go running past it again.

Cuppy Tales

I would have to say that Cuppy is my favorite cat.

She almost died twice when she was a kitten. She had some kind of infection and was very sick, but Warren doctored her up and she managed to survive. Before that, we found her as a wet, hungry, and scared little kitten next door. Her mother was gone and she had tumbled into the water on the pool cover with her sister. The first time I saw Cuppy she looked like a drowned rat. She had a little backside that stuck out like a little cupcake, which is how she got her name. I thought it was not healthy, but eventually, it went in to a normal size.

She got attacked at one point by the bigger cats and they cut a notch in her ear, which is still there to this day. You can tell she's in the bottom of the cat pecking order and is constantly on the run from the other cat bullies. This has made her quite resilient. When she wants to go outside in the morning and the outside cats are in a cluster outside the door, waiting to be fed, she makes a running leap and soars right over their heads and out into the yard.

Cuppy will climb way up in a tree and go way out on a limb and catch a cicada (locust). She used to bring them inside to show off and play with. She also chases the turkeys and has been known to freighten off a deer, as well as coming nose to nose with one out of sheer curiosity.

When I come home, she runs up to the car to see me. When I try to stop petting her, she stands up on her hind legs and takes my hand in her paws.

When she was a kitten, she would try to get the food off of my plate or eat something off the counter that she wasn't supposed to. We would yell "Cuppy! No!" and she would go "mrowwll!" So she likes to talk back to us.

I've written about how she likes to rub her face on my socks when I get home at the end of the day in a previous post, and I've written about her obsession about the Atomic Ball and how she talks to me to get me to look for it for her. What I may not have mentioned is that she loves to play fetch with her little Atomic Ball, just like a dog. She brings it over and drops it in front of you and stares at you until you toss it into the other room. Very fun.

She also likes to come in the middle of the night (I should say really early morning) and dig her claws in me like she's nursing. If I see a dark blob, feel sharp claws, and hear a really loud purring at 4 a.m., I know it's Cuppy.

When I sit on the floor in front of the couch and watch TV, she likes to sit right next to me. She doesn't want me to pet her, usually, she just wants to sit near me. She sits in Andrea's lap and licks her fingers, then rubs the wet fingertips back along her jawline.

I'm not sure how it is that so much personality is crammed into such a little package.

The Atomic Ball is back

Monday morning Cuppy started talking to me again. She hasn't talked in a long time and was very excited for some reason. She wanted me to go to a back bedroom, so I followed her. She was hanging out next to the dresser, very loud then. I got down and looked under, and there was her famous and beloved atomic ball.

She was so happy she sat on it like a little egg. Maybe she was trying to hatch more little atomic balls.

Unfortunately, by Wednesday, it was missing again. I'll look for it this weekend.

Hummingbirds

I visited my friend 4 doors down Sunday. He had several hummingbird feeders. When I noticed this, he said that there are more hummingbirds this year than ever before.

Andrea has seen hummingbirds all summer and keeps telling me about it.

All we have is flowers, but the hummingbirds seem to like them too. It's hard to photograph a hummingbird in motion. The zip around all over the place. It only took me about 20 pictures to get this one.

Gardner Spider

I got to see another Gardner Spider on Labor Day. My younger cousins and nephews had not seen this trick before. I caught a grasshopper and put it in the web, and the spider quickly caught, paralyzed and wrapped up the grasshopper.

They asked me if it was dead and when it was going to drink the blood, and I'm not sure. I think the grasshoppers insides liquify, but they stay alive for a while until the spider is ready to finish his meal.

It's delightfully disgusting.

Green Heron

We have a little Green Heron that comes to our pond from time to time. We love to watch it catch frogs and strut around the pond, stalking for prey.

Andrea thought that the bird looked like President Nixon, so we called it the Nixon bird for a long time.

The cats, of course, would like to meet the bird, but the bird has other ideas.

If you right click on the picture and save it, then zoom in, you can see the colors on the heron. I've never noticed all the colors on this bird before.

Yellow Bellied Marmot

This little guy was also beside the trail on the way up Mt. Washburn.

They are also called a Rock Chuck and they are in the squirrel family. This guy wasn't afraid of us at all, and seemed uninterested in the Bighorn Sheep walking behind it.

The Wikipedia entry for this little furry mammal is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-bellied_Marmot

Come to think of it, Wikipedia changes from time to time, and this entry is so enjoyable, I better copy it here:

The Yellow-bellied Marmot (Marmota flaviventris), also known as the Rock Chuck, is a ground squirrel in the marmot genus. It lives in the western United States and southwestern Canada, including the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. It inhabits steppes, meadows, talus fields and other open habitats, sometimes on the edge of deciduous or coniferous forests, and typically above 2000 metres (6500 feet) of elevation. Yellow-bellied Marmots usually weigh between 5 and 11 pounds (2 and 5 kg) when fully grown. They get fatter in the fall just before hibernating. A marmot’s habitat is mostly grass and rocks with few trees. Their territory is about 20,000 to 30,000 square metres (about 6 acres) around a number of summer burrows.

Animal seen on the summit of Pyramid Peak (California)Marmots choose to dig burrows under rocks because predators are less likely to see their burrow. Predators include wolves, foxes, and coyotes. When a marmot sees a predator it whistles to warn all other marmots in the area (giving it the nickname the whistle pig). Then it typically hides in a nearby rock pile.

Marmots reproduce when about 2 years old, and may live up to an age of fifteen years. They reside in colonies. A colony is a group of about 10 to 20. Each male marmot digs a burrow soon after he wakes up from hibernation. He then starts looking for females and by summer has 1 to 4 females living with him. Litters usually average 2-5 offspring per female. Marmots have what is called "harem-polygynous" mating system, which means the male defends 1-4 mates at the same time.

Yellow-bellied Marmots are diurnal like most mammals. The marmot is also an omnivore, eating grass, leaves, flowers, fruit, grasshoppers, and bird eggs.

Marmots are not hunted for sport but are sometimes killed by farmers.

Yellow-bellied Marmots include "toilet rooms" in their burrows as well as living rooms, bedrooms and eating rooms.

Mt. Washburn Bighorns

We climbed Mt. Washburn on our last day in Yellowstone. The hike was very scenic and a highlight of the trip.

One of the highlights of the hike was seeing a herd of Bighorns. They passed us on the trail, completely ignoring us, about 5 feet away at their closest. I thought that Bighorns had horns that curled all the way around back to the front.

These sheep are all females, the males have the long horns. We did not see any males.

Madison River Yetis

One thing the Yellowstone Park brochures do not tell you about is that there are Yetis in the park.

We discovered this pair fishing in the Madison River. The front one is standing right behind the branches in the middle of the stream and his buddy is swimming up behind him.

We did not report them to the Rangers, because we did not want to get them in trouble. They did not have fishing licenses.

Buffalo Jam

The brochures about Yellowstone warn that you could be stuck in traffic for long periods of time because everyone stops to see the wildlife. They usually call them "Bear Jams" (instead of traffic jams).

We did not see any bears or any bear jams, but we did see this very interesting Buffalo Jam. They don't really seem to care about the cars at all, they just walk along nice and slow.

I wonder if they think they are in a parade?

Chubby Cheeks Chipmunk

This little guy is working hard to store up energy for the winter.

They can really pack a lot of food in their cheeks. I guess people do, too. Just not the same cheeks.

Entering Bear Country

If you read the sign, you wonder why anyone would leave their car or venture into the park at all.

We did not see any bears, but we wanted to. We went onto trails twice that said there were bears nearby. We did run into some Serbians or Latvians or something that claimed to see a bear, but they were totally crazy, so who knows what they really saw.

It would be good to drive right up to some nice parking lot and have a bear come out and dance and pose for you, but that didn't happen to us.

Maybe next time.

The Raven

There were Ravens everywhere in the west. They seemed to like to hang out in parking lots.

Ravens are very interesting because they are very intelligent. They have been known to use tools. These Ravens watched for food and we found one opening a pouch in the back of a truck and pulling items out, looking for food.

I gave it a cracker.

Friendly Neighborhood Elk Patrol

At Mammoth Hot Springs near the Park Headquarters at Historic Fort Yellowstone, the elk roam freely on the well manicured grounds.

It's like one big perpetual elk party.

Moose in Yellowstone

This is the only Moose we saw in Yellowstone.

He did not come up to the road to see us. He did not dance on his hind legs for us. He did not talk to us in Moosinese.

It was good to see him, but I'm really sorry he didn't perform for us.

The Velvet Buck and the Korean Maiden

This buck was by the path with about 60 tourists watching from about 15 feet away. They were all in awe, as the deer was so close.

A young Korean girl walked over to the deer and turned around so that her boyfriend could take her picture in front of the deer. She was dangerously close and had her back to the buck.

The American tourists thought they knew better and that the Korean was being stupid. But the deer did not attack the Korean and they got a really excellent photo. So who was more stupid?

Tourist Animals on the Edge

This is Yellowstone's Grand Canyon. This view is looking down the canyon from the second falls, which is the big 300 foot tall one. We had been on observation overlooks which are visible on in the big picture.

I was looking at the photo and blew it up to spot the lower observation platform. That's when I noticed that the tourist on the platform is standing on the handrail for an interesting photo.

We had been on this platform earlier and saw that the drop off the rail would be fatal. Andrea had heard before we left for the vacation that there was a tourist that fell off of a guardrail to her death as her family watched. It was such a rare and bizarre event that I assumed we would never hear of somthing like it happening again, much less witness someone risking the same fate.

But the man in the picture did not fall.

The Great White Buffalo

I wrote about White Buffaloes in a June post called The Great White Peacock, so it was in the back of my mind when I went on vacation, and when we started seeing Buffaloes, the song just started coming into my mind every day.

I became obsessed with the Ted Nugent song, and tried to remember exactly how it went, but it just wasn't coming back clearly. When we got to Cody Wyoming, not only did we have internet access that allowed me to buy the song on itunes and play it for Andrea, but they also had a White Buffalo statue.

The buffaloness of the vacation was really going well up to that point, but seeing the White Buffalo statue was the icing on the cake. The creamy sweet white icing that is.

When I played the song for Andrea, I realized that the lyrics were almost like a children's story. I would like to share them with you now (I recommend listening to the song for the full effect):

The Great White Buffalo

(Double Live Gonzo version)

Well, listen everybody,
to what I got to say.
There's hope for tomorrow,
Ooh,we're workin'on today.

Well,it happened long time ago,
in the new magic land.
The Indian and the buffalo,
they existed hand in hand....

The Indian needed food,
he needed skins for a roof.
But he only took what they needed,baby.
Millions of buffalo were the proof.

Yeah,its all right.
But then came the white man,
with his thick and empty head.
He couldnt see past the billfold,

he wanted all the buffalo dead.
It was sad...It was sad.
Oh yeah...yes indeed.
Oh yes,

it happened a long time ago,baby.
In the new magic land.
See,the Indian and the buffalo,
they existed hand in hand.

The Indians,they needed some food,
and some skins for a roof.
They only took what they needed,baby.
millions of buffalo were the proof,yeah.

But then came the white dogs,
with their thick and empty heads.
They couldnt see past the billfold.
they wanted all the buffalo dead.
Everything was SO sad.

When I looked above the canyon wall,
some strong eyes did I see.
I think its somebody comin' around
to save my ass,baby.
I think...I think he's comin' around
to save you and me.

Boys......

I said, above the canyon wall...
strong eyes did glow.
It was the leader of the land,baby.
OH MY GOD, The GREAT WHITE BUFFALO.....
LOOK OUT!!!! LOOK OUT!!!!!!!

(excellent guitar solo)

Well,he got the battered herd.
He led em cross the land.
With the Great White Buffalo,
they gonna make a final stand.

The Great White Buffalo,
comin'around to make a final stand.
Well,look out here he comes.

The great white buffalo,baby.
The Great White Buffalo....
Look out,here he comes.
He's doin'all right.

Makin'everything all right.
Yeah,yeah,yeah....