Yellowstone, Day 1

I decided to take another trip to Yellowstone National Park. The national park system has been described as America's best idea, and I readily agree. Yellowstone is an amazing place, teeming with wildlife, with stunning landscapes as well. I had never visited the park in fall, and this time found it at about the peak of fall colors.

Day 1 was spent in Lamar Valley. I've said before that I could spend a lot of time in this valley and I would never miss a chance to do just that. This was a wildlife day, starting with that staple of Yellowstone, the bison.

This big fellow contrasted nicely with the sagebrush.

Next we were fortunate enough to run across pronghorn antelope, America's fastest land mammal. This fellow wasn't running anywhere. Having just fed, he was bedded down for a while before continuing on.

Again, the cottonwoods provided a great background.

One of the truly fantastic sights here in the fall are the elk. This is the time of the rut, and a bugling elk is quite a sight as well as a sound you won't soon forget.

This 6 x 6 bull was truly magnificent!

As the day came to a close, we finished up with a band of bighorn sheep. These were ewes and lambs. No big rams here, but it still was quite a sight!

Stay tuned. More to come.