Captivated by Breathtaking Beauty

(Yellowstone National Park, July 26-29) I could be talking about my lovely wife, but in this case I am not. Spending several days at Grand Teton National Park only heightened our anticipation of what Yellowstone Park held in store. Making it an even more special blessing was being able to share it with our dear friends Bill and Sara Payton.
We had high expectations for the great beauty at Yellowstone, so no surprise there, what blew us away was the great diversity. Some of the first people to see this place and return to describe it to others were the mountain men/fur trappers of the early 1800's. Known for their tall tales anyway, their stories of bubbling mud pits, geysers spewing hot water hundreds of feet into the air, a mountain lake as big as a sea, a grand canyon miles long split by a roaring river with not less three 100' tall waterfalls within a mile of each other, to say nothing of the plethora of wildlife...from wolves, black and grizzly bear, moose, buffalo, elk, antelope, deer and badgers. If you haven't seen this place in person you too might accuse someone of lying or at least truth stretching when describing this place. But it's true, all of this and more packed into this small corner of God's creation in the northwest corner of Wyoming and southwest corner of Montana.

Each day held wonderful surprises for us. We prayed before launching out on our first day that we would see a wolf and a grizzly. We had been driving in the park less than an hour in the morning when a gray wolf crossed the road right in front of our car! A short time later we saw a grizzly bear from long distance. Some time later we saw a crowd gathered a little off the main road, we made it back there to see a large group with binoculars, spotting scopes etc. watching a wolf about 1/2 - 3/4 mile away who had made a kill of an elk or antelope earlier in the day. The wolf was protecting her prize and alternately gorging on the fresh meat and taking it uphill into a stand of lodgepole pine where it was supposed she was feeding a den of young cubs. We even saw her fight off a coyote trying to steal her fresh kill. We stayed there almost an hour watching the amazing scene.

Over the 3 days we saw more buffalo than anything. Bull elk were majestic with their huge antlers still growing. We learned that elk lose their antlers every winter, which explained the elk antler arches we had seen at the city park in Jackson, WY.

We enjoyed two days with Bill and Sara and a third on our own. On the second day with our friends we spent a lot of time in the Old Faithful area of the Geyser Basin. We knew generally the Old Faithful geyser, what we didn't know was the Geyser Basin is the largest concentration of geysers and geothermal activity in the world. This was the area that made early explorers sound like liars...it truly is unbelievable to see.

On our last day in the park we saw more of the same amazing wildlife and scenery. We took lawnchairs to the edge of an overlook of Firehole Canyon and the Firehole River enjoying our lunch while being serenaded by roaring rapids. On a drive to Butte Lookout above Yellowstone Lake we found a spot with a sign that said we were at the point farthest from any main road in the lower 48 states! Driving nearly to the east entrance to the park we got in several "critter jams" -- traffic jams due to buffalo watchers, which delayed us considerably. It was nearing sunset and we were still about 40 miles from the north entrance where we needed to exit to get back to our RV park. It had been a good day enjoying the beauty, but nothing super-spectacular and then the Lord gave us icing on the cake to what had been an amazing 3 days. First we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset, then as dusk was setting in we saw a Park Ranger up ahead on the side of the road which is usually a good sign that something was stirring...we got there when only a few cars had stopped and there in the distance making its way down a steep ravine was a huge grizzly bear!!...there wasn't a place to park, so we kept on, but we both got a good look at it! But God was not done. I had wanted to see a big horn sheep. There was just a glimmer of light left in the sky and we were about a mile from leaving the park, wending our way down into a canyon to get to the main highway. We turned sharply through one of the switchbacks and saw a photographer set up on the side of the road looking high up at the rocky cliff, and there in perfect profile were two big horn sheep! One standing and one lying down with their heads held high as their majestic horns caught the last rays of the days light. We probably only had less than 10 seconds of viewing before going around the corner, but it was enough to see a breathtaking site and breathe a prayer of thanks to our Great Creator God for this special blessing, this special time to enjoy it with friends and each other and a special thanks to this special place.