I'm a bear! Put your head in my mouth!!!

Hello People of the warm east coast.

10 Minutes Later. Snowing!

Sunny!

It seems that the closer to the end of this trip we get, the harder the elements hit us. Yellowstone had the most indecisive weather I've ever seen. At one point in the morning there was sleet coming down on the top of our tent. Ten minutes later, there was bright sunshine heating our tent up like a microwave. It got to the point where I actually had to vacate the tent and brave the great outdoors. It was about 11, so I think it was about that time anyways. Yeah, that was the best morning ever. You never start to appreciate sleeping in like you should until you find yourself up at 7 or 8 every morning. I can safely say that due to the effort I had to put forth to actually keep myself asleep, that my sleep schedule has improved significantly from the past school year.
Back to the elements though. As soon as we woke up completely, the snow began to fall again. Time for breakfast and a bit of coffee to warm up the soul. We had pancakes... again. :) I like pancakes though, so it's not such a drag for me. I discovered that syrup and honey go quite well together. Whoever said too much of a good thing is bad obviously never had pancakes with syrup and honey.
After a bountiful banquet of baked batter, we set out on a drive to find all of God's creatures located in Yellowstone.

Our first destination was Lookout point, which offered a view of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Dan made the comment that this was the only place in Yellowstone where the stone was actually yellow. The water was too, which made me wary of any spigots located nearby. Years of hearing "don't eat the yellow snow" resounded in my mind. Snow... that's just cold water. So yellow snow melts... into yellow water. Urgh! Thankfully, my CamelBack seems to replenish it's water by itself as I've been drinking from it for about a week now, and have yet needed to refill it myself. And it's always COLD!
After Lookout we drove up farther to Inspiration Point, to be inspired. The point used to reach out 100 more feet than what we witnessed, but in the past a tremor had caused that extra length to tumble into the gorge. That brings to mind an interesting factoid that I learned from the sign posted there. The canyon is going to continue to grow larger because when the water from the waterfall hits the river below, it causes a cyclic motion in the water which pounds the base of the falls. As that rock base erodes, the upper part of the falls begins to fall down as well.
Then we headed up to Mammoth Hotsprings, but the boardwalk was out about halfway through so we didn't get to see the whole area. so that leads me to my favorite part of the day, and this post: ANIMALS!!!!

Our hunt led us all the way to the visitor's center about 3000 miles away. That's an exaggeration, but I don't remember the actual mileage. Traffic was terrible, but for a decent reason. There were bears on either side of the road. First we saw a small grizzly plodding along the hill on the left. It's amazing how much people freak out seeing something in it's natural habitat, and being calm and collected when they see it behind glass at the Asheboro Zoo. Perhaps it's the adrenaline rushing through your body when in the back of your mind you realize, "My gosh, that bear could just fire out and hit him right now... He would never expect it." Moving right along up the road another half mile, and we hit another traffic jam. This time, everyone was looking over to the right. Our natural inclination was to look to the right, just so we could remain inconspicuous. If there's bears around, I don't want to stick out. Thankfully, the traffic didn't completely stop moving, so we got
to catch the black bear lumbering through the trees in motion. Everyone disembarked the vehicle in motion to capture him on the camera. That camera is a five person job. One of us has to frame the picture. One of us has to click the picture. One of us has to review the picture. One of us has to deride the efforts of the previous three. And one of us had to remain in the vehicle to steer. You didn't really think we'd leave the vehicle unattended when it was rolling down the road. :)

We arrived at the visitor center, but I was feeling rebellious, so we took a detour behind it into a residential reserved for "Employees Only." I consider myself an employee, just not of the park. They never specified, so I see nothing wrong with my actions. Back on subject, however, we saw four female elk grazing and lounging in the yards of the houses. For us North Carolinians, that's an odd occurrence. So we took pictures.

After entering the visitor's center, and wondering around looking at the stuffed animals on display, we found out that Lamar Valley was closed due to a rock slide. It had happened that morning. This is why I said it was the best morning ever. Had we gotten up at our usual time and made way down into the valley, we might have been stranded behind the rock-slide. Thankfully, we got our fill of wildlife without going down into the valley. On the way back to camp, we filled up our quota with some coyotes, and a random bison walking down the road... amidst about 20 cars. That bison was so chill. When the ranger got there with his flashing lights and guided the bison off the road, traffic began to proceed again as usual, until he decided he liked the feel of asphalt on his hooves. He was all like "Whatever... I'm a bison. I do what I want."
Then we trudged back to the camp site to freeze for another night. But alas! Weather wasn't on our side it seemed, because there was supposed to be a large amount of snowfall that night. So we decided to head out last night for Grand Tetons, instead of waiting until morning. This turned out to be Providence, however. Seeing as yesterday was Saturday, that meant that today was Sunday. The Sabbath. And coincidentally, our good friend, the lovely Julia Monroe, was spending her summer working at the Jackson Lake lodge, which happened to operate the campground we were staying at. Something about seeing a friend from back home on the other side of the country just makes it more special. Her and some of her new friends had a Sunday service this morning, but I've just been informed by Stephen that I'm not allowed to write about it, because it happened today. Oh well. I guess that leaves me with the final event of the day: Setting up camp in the dark. It was our fastest construction of a campsite yet. But that's about all. Until next time, at which we will be on our way back to the Sunny side of the country, I wish you all a Happy Sunday!

-David

"Let everything that has breath Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord."
-Psalm 150:6