Yellowstone before school

Sulfur hot spot

Our family decided to take a family trip to Yellowstone before school starts again.  We have relatives that live up in the area as well, so we were able to visit with family as well as visit one of the world's most incredible natural wonders.

Yellowstone is full of bubbling cauldrons of water and gasses from the inner belly of the earth.  Some smell better than others since there is a definite sulfur smell that surrounds some of the "hot spots" and the earth mixes some amazing colors into the whole mix as well.

The famous falls of Yellowstone Grand Canyon

We swam in a heated river that sometimes ran hot, and sometimes ran cold. The trick was to find a comfy spot of warm.  Chance and his siblings had a great time riding down the current of the river and enjoying the beauty of their surroundings.

My brain has an interesting process that it has to go through now that I have two deaf children.  When we are at places where implants and hearing aids are taken off, I find myself addressing this question each time I need to talk to one of my children,"Can this child hear me? Oh, yes that is right, this child hears me just fine here in the river."
Or
"Can this child hear me? Nope, this is one of my deafies and I am going to need to reach out and touch them, have someone else in the family touch them or wave my arms like a crazy lady so they will look at me."
If the deaf child is Chance, he can read lips like a professional and so if you can just get close enough to him, he will be able to know what you are saying.
His brother does not have that skill and so we need to get really close to his less-deaf ear on the right side, lean in close and tell him what we need to say.

We can use some sign language with Chance, but his brother's hearing loss is new, and he doesn't know any sign language.  He will most likely start learning some this fall.

Yellowstone is full of bison.  Huge, 3500 pound animals that are massive, majestic, and sometimes mean if they think you are messing with them or they feel threatened.




Chance's dad and I witnessed a bison venting frustration when we visited Yellowstone before we had children.  Just as we entered the park, we stopped in the road because the van in front of us was stopped.  Several children were out of the van and down by the river where a bison was hanging out.  They wanted to get a picture of the bison, and they wanted him to be facing them,so they threw a rock to get his attention.  The bison did not take this action very well.  He charged up the small embankment after the kids who barely made it into their van.  The bison then proceeded to slam his body against the van causing it to rock back and forth.

Needless to say, we have had a healthy respect for these powerful animals ever since.  Bison do not usually just charge people and Yellowstone has millions of visitors a year that never see a bison charge anyone.  It is just wise to have a good healthy respect for all of the animals in the park and keep a good healthy distance.

This year, we had a close encounter with a bison.  We were down by the river next to the bridge where cars and pedestrians can cross over.  There is a path down by the river and the kids saw a ranger and walked over to ask him about where bears live in the park.

During our conversation, a bison decided to cross right down the middle of the bridge.  Cars and people froze in place and just let him cross.  He was huge, and was capable of running much faster than any of us mere mortals can run.

I started to run to catch  my younger children who were headed to the bridge and began to call out to Chance and his siblings who were all spread out on the bridge and pathway.  Chance's brother was actually on the bridge as was his sister.  Chance was off to the side, and Ammon and his sister were by me and their dad.  The ranger hurried up to the bridge saying something like, "Four years of college to play traffic control for a bison."  He helped keep the mood light. The ranger stood up on the bridge helping the people on foot and bikes safely navigate around the wondering bison.

When I caught up to my younger children, I told them that we were going to wait right down by the path and not get any closer to the bridge.  The ranger told them he thought this was a great idea as he passed us on his way up to the bridge. The ranger also told me that the bison might come down onto the path because there was a hill next to it that the bison liked to climb up.  I moved the kids away from the hill and we waited and watched to see where the bison would decide to go.

The bison started walking toward Chance's older brother who was on the bridge.  The bison got to about 6 feet away from him.  It was a tense moment for both Chance's brother and the ranger. The ranger told Chance's sister that she may need to slip under the benches running along side of the bridge since she was small enough but to wait until he told her to go.  The suggested distance to be from a bison is 30 yards.  More if possible.  They can run 30 miles per hour.

The bison choosing the trail over us

The bison crossed the bridge and then started down the stairs that led down to the path.  There we were, just watching him and trying not to get in his way.  I stood with my kids who thankfully just stood still next to me.  The ranger told us to move a little to the right so that the bison would have a clear shot to the path on the hill that the bison like to use.  My younger kids were more to the right with their dad, as was Chance when the bison just stopped to have a look around.  I was standing kind of off a little apart from the others as I had not made it as far a they had before the bison got so close to us.  The bison just stood there, as if surveying the scene, and then he turned his body toward me.  I was over closer to the river than the path on the hill. We just sat and looked at each other for a few seconds while he decided what he was going to do. I felt pretty calm considering the situation, though my mind started to wonder if I was going to need to run should he charge. I looked at his beautiful big brown eyes and waited to see where he was going to go for those few seconds,  then he just swung his massive head around and headed up the path the ranger said he might take.

Chance playing around at Gibbon Falls

It was an amazing experience.  The ranger told us afterward that he thought the bison was going to go for Chance's older brother who said that he was seriously getting ready to jump off of the bridge into the river if the bison walked any closer to him. We are grateful that there was an experienced ranger there to help us stay calm and safe.  We are grateful that no one in the family got hurt and amazed that we got such a close up look at such an amazing creature.  We made a memory that will last a lifetime.