Travel Journal, September 11, 2007
Note: This “lost” Haw Creek Out ‘n About post was recovered from the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.
We arrived in West Yellowstone today, camping about six miles from the west gate of the park. After we got the camper set up for our stay, I ran into town to find something to anchor our new internet satellite dish as it was pretty gusty and Karen got started on laundry – one thing that it’s hard to escape from.
We made it into the park by a little before 3 o’clock and spent about 4 hours enjoying the scenery and seeing some of the animals.
Karen had put a stew in the crock pot, so when we got back to camp we had supper waiting for us.
While in town earlier in the day, I had picked up a local a newspaper. The top headline on the front page of the West Yellowstone News says, “It’s a Town in Bear Country.” The article relates two recent bear incidents in the area. In one, a grizzly was a attracted by the smell of garbage on a screened in back porch – you can guess the rest. The screen on the porch didn’t keep the grizzly out. Fortunately, he didn’t make it into the cabin. In the other incident a bear at a local campground “nipped a man sleeping outside his tent, leaving a bruise on his thigh.”
We’re currently at the campground mentioned. We’re in a hard-side camper and won’t be sleeping outside – not that we would under any other circumstances.
Karen had this to say about the incident in her blog: “….a bear had been sighted in the campground several weeks ago!!!! Some idiot decided to sleep outside of his tent and was awakened by a bear who it said “took a nip” at him. I imagine he screamed like a little school girl and scared it and it took off… he was not injured. Everyone is warned as they come into the campground to set up that you are not to leave any food out ect, not even an ice chest as it might have scents of food. You have to clean off your grill if you use it and put your grill in your car or trunk or camper overnight and not leave it outside.”
I took quite a few photos today on our drive into the park. These are some of the better ones.
From the truck we saw a coyote trotting and looking for food close to the road and Karen rolled down the window as I slowed the truck to a crawl. She snapped off about 10 photos of this as he wandered through the grasses. While I take most of the photos, sometimes while I’m driving if we see something Karen will roll her window down and start snapping. Sometimes she’ll take a photo through the front windshield, but a lot of those don’t turn out due to glare or bug splatters.
Some of the wonderful Yellowstone scenery along the Madison River — more to come.
Note: This “lost” Haw Creek Out ‘n About post was recovered from the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.
