1) If you drive around, they will come. We saw all of these just off the road (except the two bears fighting over food. That was at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone–an awesome not-for-profit wildlife and educational center that provides homes for bears and wolves unable to be in the wild–most having become accustomed to human food. See full review HERE).
2) NOT having cell service is a good thing.
3) Every gift store is different.
4) You can really appreciate the beauty of God’s world in Nature.
5) Cameras these days are so much better than those of old. Judge for yourself from the images below:
Explanation on photos for those curious:
The first one is actually in Thermopolis, WY, where there are thermal hot springs as well just like in Yellowstone (part of the same underground geothermal area). I couldn’t resist the cloud formations. Beautiful!
My daughter actually took the photo of the Mastiff Geyser sign. She couldn’t resist since we own two English Mastiffs. It was an ode to them!
The geyser is Old Faithful.
I can’t say enough about the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center. Please see my full review HERE. If you are looking for a wonderful animal center to support, look no further.
The buffalo (proper name is bison) have the right of way in Yellowstone. This guy walked right by us on the road.
The deer are black-tailed deer–quite rare in Wyoming.
This white wolf was a loner and we saw him two days in a row. The buffalo nearby completely ignored him, not threatened in the least by a single wolf. I kept wondering what his story was…
I’m assuming the two black bears were a pair of recently-weaned young (a year or so old) but we didn’t stick around long enough to find out. We were extremely close. When you’re in Yellowstone, you know there’s a bear or a moose or something rare by the number of cars alongside the road. We stopped here because of just such a scene. We crested a hill and right in front of us was this pair! We snapped a couple of photos and got out of there! Everyone else seemed to be hanging out but I’m not one to be a bear snack!
Outside of Old Faithful, the other geyser pictures posted are from Norris Geyser Basin. We stopped at others but I liked these the best.
Like all the other animals we saw, the moose was standing in a river right by the road after you entered the park from the West Yellowstone entrance. Eating contentedly despite the crowds.
The camera I used was a simple Sony 12.1 Mega Pixel Cyber-Shot.