Banner Day in Yellowstone

We made our first visit of the new season to Yellowstone yesterday. After driving into town to get the truck washed and having breakfast at Bubba's BBQ, we headed out for Yellowstone National Park. It was sunny, warm and beautiful as it became the most successful trip ever, in terms of wildlife sightings. We saw: (3) bears, lots of bison, elk, goats, antelope, coyote (we thought at first it was a fox) and lots of unusual birds. We couldn't possibly show all of the photos we took, so I will just show some of them.

Starting with bison which were also seen in the Tetons as we drove through:

These shots are of the best bear that we saw. Two of the bears were too far away to get great shots, but this one was only about 30 feet away:

We saw several antelope, this one was closest:

We saw what we thought was a fox but on closer inspection appears to be a coyote:

The elk we saw were also too far away - and too quick - to get good shots. These goats were just browsing along the side of the hill:

Most of these sightings were in the same general area of Yellowstone - the area above Tower Roosevelt and at the start of the Lamar Valley.

We stopped for lunch - at close to 5 PM - and found a nice spot along the Yellowstone River:

We were surprised at the amount of snow that was still present in the higher elevations of the Park:

It turned out to be a trip to be remembered as the most prolific we have ever taken in terms of  wildlife sightings. Our return trip through the Tetons saw lots of clouds roll in and some rain as we got closer to home. This is a nice view of the mountains that Josie took as we approached home:

Today is day number two of our three days off and we will concentrate on some chores that need to be done like laundry and grocery shopping...