Day 15 and 16-July 23 and 24, 2008

CAN'T ROLLER SKATE IN A BUFFALO HERD!!!!

Well, we went to Yellowstone yesterday and what an experience!! Of course, I HAD to get up early, which as most of you know, isn't my strongest suit!!! It was still around 9 when we actually left. It took an hour to get to the park entrance. The drive up was beautiful. We took lots of pictures AGAIN!!! Thank goodness for digital cameras. Even the Clintons couldn't afford to have all of our pictures printed. :>)

We started out in Yellowstone just driving around and seeing the different sites. Lots of geysers, lakes, streams and animal areas. We got some good pictures of Buffaloes. And speaking of buffaloes.......... I have a story to tell about them. I was using the video mode on my camera to try and get some film of animals. We had forgotten to take the camcorder and I wanted some live shots. We pulled off at a "round about" and I was filming a buffalo who decided to swim across the river in our direction. Everything was going smoothly until he got almost to our side of the river. One of the other tourists decided to walk down the road to where the buffalo had planned to cross the road and go into the field on that side of the road. Of course, when Mr. Buffalo saw a human in his path, he decided to change course and where do you think he decided to go??? Right. We, meaning Merrell, Chuck. Carolee and me with my camera, were directly in his path. Now. mind you. I am standing there with the camera to my eye, trying to locate the buffalo in the view finder (he had gone behind some trees and I hadn't located him yet) so I have no idea what is going on. Well, Merrell and Carolee saw the buffalo who had decided he needed to run really fast (as in CHARGE) in our direction. They decided they need to run FAST and get behind one of the vehicles in the parking lot. I may have forgotten to mention that the parking lot was full of OTHER people too!!! Well, here I was with the camera stuck to my face, still not knowing what was going on, BUT I did hear Merrell start running and I heard a lot of screaming, well. maybe not screaming exactly, but certainly it was EXCITED LOUD NOISES!!! Well, I figured if Merrell was running, I probably should be too, right??? So, I started running. Totally forgot my camera was still on and it's picking up the sounds of people running and the picture was bouncing around getting shots of people's rear ends (running away), the parking lot surface and trees. I still wasn't sure why I was running, though by that time I had an inkling that it had something to do with the buffalo!!! Nothing slow about me!!! Chuck was somewhere around. I still don't know where he went to. Carolee was in front and Merrell right behind her. Now, remember. I am his wife, who he promised to love. honor and PROTECT and what does he do?? You got it!! When I asked him why he just up and left me, his answer was that sometimes in life, it's every man for himself!!! Teeheehee
You probably won't get the whole picture by viewing the video (I hope you can open it). I think you had to be there to get the whole picture. We all died laughing when we first saw it, because we were there and filled in the blanks. Anyway, that was our excitement for yesterday. I don't think we could top that if we tried.

After the excitement of the buffalo, Ole Faithful wasn't quite as exciting as it might have been. It was still a wondrous sight to see. Suffice it to say, Yellowstone will always have a special place in our hearts because we sure did laugh a lot the rest of the day.