Yellowstone!

So I went to Yellowstone a few weeks ago. My good friend Rachael invited me. She was a Ranger there a few years ago, and she had a hankering to get back. So we decided to go. Her sister, Emma, went too. I had never been to Yellowstone, so I was pretty excited. It was so much fun.

So here is our camp and the lovely Rachael. Funny story. If you look into the fire pit you can see a dutch oven with coals on them. I was making dutch oven potatoes. Well this guy from Indiana comes over (they were across from us chopping wood. I was waiting for them to chop off a foot.) And he thought we needed help starting our fire because we were just sitting around the pit looking at a dutch oven. He had never seen one before so we had to explain it to him. Then later, we had tons of leftovers so we invited this group of guys over that were next to us. Turns out they were Dutch! They had never seen a dutch oven before, so they were impressed. We googled it later, turns out a dutch oven really is dutch, just from a few hundred years ago.

This was my first view of the park. Seriously, it's like a different planet. It's cool, but I couldn't help thinking about all those Discovery channel specials about the super volcano under Yellowstone and that's why there were steam vents and hotpots everywhere. Wierd and creepy.

This is me trying to be artistic. It would have worked a lot better if my camera hadn't been in the shop because my lens was jammed. This is why real photographers have back up lenses. I was bitter the whole trip that I didn't have my camera and only my stupid point and shoot. Then I had to look at all the tourists with their freakin D300s walking around. BITTER.

This is our first self portrait. It goes, Emma, Rachael, and then me. Yes, I'm giving bunny ears to Rachael, it's what I do.

This is me. Duh. I debated posting it because I think I look like a cow, but I figure this is what people see everyday, so what the heck. I realize the irony of me wearing a I love NY t-shirt in Yellowstone. I like it and it's comfortable. Anyways, my favorite part of Yellowstone was the views and the canyons and mountains. LOVED it.

This is me again. In front of a huge waterfall. I loved it and thought I would document it for the ages.

This is the three of us again, at the same waterfall. Emma, Rachael, and me. Fun times.

Like I said before, I loved the sweaping vistas. I love the sky with big clouds. I'm only bitter that I didn't have my camera with my freaking UV lens so that the grass would be as green as the sky. Stupid point and shoot.

Bison! Cue the Dances with Wolves theme....

This is Old Faithful. We saw it go off twice. The lodge right behind it had the most awesome Raspberry Chocolate swirl soft serve ice cream. We went back twice for that too.

This is my favorite picture of the whole trip. The contrast between the blue sky, white whatever it is, and the dead tree is awesome. I love it. Again, Woe for my camera.

As we were driving back around the North Loop after we saw the place where the above picture was taken, we saw a bunch of people off to the side of the road. This usually means animals. So we slowed down and there was a baby black bear on this stump. He was so close. By the time we parked they had moved farther back but we could still see the mama bear and two baby bears. This is my sad excuse of a picture of it.

Then a few minutes later we saw the same thing. Tons of cars, tons of people. So we stopped and asked what was going on and it was a Grizzly Bear! I was pretty stoked. It was in this beautiful field of wild flowers and he was digging up all kinds of roots. Rachael said that if she was hiking on a trail and was that close to a grizzly she would be really nervous. Some idiots kept on getting closer to it. I wanted to say to them, Hello! This is why there are always stories about tourists getting mauled by bears! Duh. But it was still cool. Emma about fell over dead becuase she's pretty scared of bears.

And lastly, these are my Keens. I bought them for my trip to Greece and tested them out in Yellowstone. BEST SHOE EVER! So worth the $100 price tag. I love them. It made the loss of my camera a little bit easier to handle.