The Chanks experience nature (21st Century Style)

It is a byproduct of Yellowstone being so large that the only way you can experience lots of it in a short period of time is to drive from place to place. So you get your RVs, your bus size RVs, your actual tour buses, your large SUVs, your large monster (out here they probably use them for the right reasons) 2 ton pickup trucks, and all other vehicles and everyone moves around. The crazy part is that it was never that crowded (Old Faithful notwithstanding).

There are two reasons for traffic jams in the park:
#1. construction - they are replacing a bridge between two points that we traveled once in the morning and again in the late afternoon. Each time we waited about 15 minutes in a line of traffic beside the most beautiful creek imaginable. It was the best traffic jam ever.
#2. someone has spotted a genuine example of nature on the side of (or middle of) the road. All progress ceases as each vehicle inches forward and everyone asks "what is out there?" By the end of our 2nd day the Bison became blase but the bald eagle was a sight to behold.

Here is the nature count (and yes we sadly are still missing Hawaii and Delaware):

Bison - about 15 (not counting the same one rolling like a dog in a patch of dirt that we saw 3 times due to navigation errors)

Mule Deer - about 15 (including a cute display of frolicking in a creek that created a monster traffic jam)

Cattle Drive - 1 (in Wyoming before we arrived in the park)

Pika - too many to count (Malcolm describe them as "rat-things" but they were more of a cross between a chipmunk and squirrel and we walked through a colony of them in our search for Lost Lake)

Elk - 4 (in the mountains of Wyoming before the park)

Coyote - 1 (walking across the road)

Trumpeter Swans - 4

Black bear - 2 (Shelly's main goal to find, although I had left the camera setting on B/W so all of the pictures she took after jumping out of the car in the midst of the inevitable traffic jam are a bit hard to see).

Fox - 1 (bounding up a hiking trail that we thought about climbing - we went right instead)

Bald Eagle - 1 (last thing we saw in the park as we were about 5 minutes from the park gate -great ending)