6/16/14

The crew had a potluck yesterday evening. Everyone seemed to have fun and it was good eatin'. A few of us sat around a campfire until it started raining at 8:30. That pretty much broke the party up.

I had a customer come to my window a couple days ago asking about our "Full" sign out on the road. Rather than the usual "I know the sign says full, but I know that sometimes there is one or two sites left" question, this guy wanted to know what the "Full" sign meant. I explained that it meant we are Full. He then asks, "Does that mean there's no room to go see the sights in the park"???? In my best customer service voice I said "No. It only means that the campground is full". It still took another few minutes to get him to understand that he could still go see the geysers and animals, but he wouldn't be able to camp in this particular campground.

Tuesday we went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone. It's a place where they house grizzlies and wolves that have become habituated or troublesome to humans (or in some cases where cubs were orphaned), as an alternative to euthanizing them after attempting to relocate them in the wild. They currently have eight grizzlies and six wolves along with some injured raptors. It's a very informative place and they appear to take good care of the animals.

Twice each day they hide food around the outdoor roaming area and release one or more bears so that they can forage for the food and the visitors can watch and learn. While we were there, they released the largest of the bears - Sam - who weighs 1000 pounds. He and his sister were orphaned in 1996 when they were 6 months old and started foraging human food because they had not learned to hunt or catch fish. 

 

A couple hours later they released a brother and sister pair named Kobuk and Nikina who like to play with each other. Each of these bears only weighs 500 pounds.

 

On the way home, we decided to drive over to Grant Village, since we hadn't been there yet. Coming out of Grant Village we saw a doe elk with her baby crossing the road. They moved into the forest, so we didn't have time to get many good photos of them.

 

Wednesday we drove around the entire loop, with the hope of finding more elk with calves. Unfortunately none were out where we went.

It was snowing over Dunraven Pass and in most of the park. It was only sticking at the higher elevations though.

 

 We stopped to see Undine Falls between Mammoth and Tower.

 

We also passed by a buck elk in velvet in the Hayden valley.

 

Basically, it was just a relaxing weekend for us.