Keegan’s graduation from Stansbury High followed by Yellowstone! Madison and Bridge Bay campgrounds. What a way to end May 2023!

First off, we headed off to Utah for Keegan’s graduation. We are truly so happy to have the time now to attend these events. We never could when I taught because the end of May is a pretty crazy time of year for a middle school teacher! Anyway, graduation was very good and we got to spend time with Auntie Mike, the Bolsers and Sheppards. We briefly saw Laura and Jordan since they are working/ taking summer school class, and Cooper since he was only in town for graduation night. We got to see Emily’s Tooele softball team in the state playoffs for 3 games. The first day got rained out, with lightning, so we came back to finish that game and 2 more. We finished in time to get dinner at Olive Garden and to the arena for graduation! It was a high school graduation (what can you say?), and fun to see Keegan proud of what he accomplished and with his friends. We don’t often get to see that. Cherie and Eric came down Friday after graduation to stay at Auntie Mike’s house and that is always a great time with family dinners in the basement. Dave helped Emily with her car and fixed her bedroom fan, and Eric helped Hannah with her summer school chemistry. Typical Utah fun!

Don’t let the stern face fool you- he had a good time!

Then Dave, Cherie, Eric and I headed to the Madison Campground of Yellowstone. It’s a long drive and we drive slow, so they took a different route through the Tetons, while we took the direct route through West Yellowstone. Madison Campground is pretty nice, and the site was flat so that was great. It is a little tight with 4 in this rig, but Cherie sleeps in the pull down bed and Eric sleeps on the foldout couch. Still not sure how he manages that. 😜 This trip we decided to focus on Lamar and Hayden valleys and look for spring babies. It did not take long to see the bison and their very new “red dogs!” Most were less than 2 weeks old and oh, so very adorable!

This is the northwest entrance outside of Gardiner, Mt.

They stand out quite well in the bright green spring grass.

There were bison jams all over the area between Madison and Mammoth. We went out driving the first day and saw – a wolf, badger, mountain goats, a mangy looking fox eating a dead squirrel in the road, pronghorn and elk on a drive to Lamar Valley. It was so fun! After the kids left, Dave and I saw coyote and a brand new bison calf at Clearwater Springs, where we stopped to look for cranes. We watched the cow for over 30 minutes in labor with the front hooves and nose poking out and going back in. Then it absolutely poured and we got frozen, so we went to the car for FIVE-minutes and came back to find the calf being cleaned by mama. We stayed to watch her first steps and feeding. It was amazing.

The animals all looked pretty scruffy as they shed their winter coats, but this fox was very shaggy looking.

I was pretty worried about this coyote finding our new baby bison but it found a mouse (?) instead and took off.

This wolf was almost out of the Lamar Valley on the east side

After the kids left to go work back in Bozeman, Dave and I continued looking every day for some other animals, like moose. We hiked down through the moose flats but found NO moose. We did however find river otters one day. And a grizzly bear another day. And some very pretty vistas as we drove around in the mornings and evenings. We got some good hikes in also in the different regions. Midweek we moved to Bridge Bay Campground where we were visited by elk and bison in the campground most days. Dave and I did go to Gardiner one day and saw the original arch and spent far too long on the phone with Kaiser trying to get me a prescription refill. So very rude! They hung up on me 4 different times, once after putting the phone on the counter for over 6 minutes. We have to rush into Spokane on Friday to refill it at the Kaiser there. Ugh!

This male grizzly posed for quite some time along the Yellowstone river

This mama grizzly and her year old cubs were further down the river in Hayden Valley

The rivers were crazy full – this is part of the Tower falls where we hiked down to the river.

Cherie and Eric came back to Yellowstone for the last two days, and that was so much fun. We played a lot of Wingspan (aka “Birds”)and continued driving around. We were closer to Hayden Valley at BB so lots of driving around looking for wolves. But we didn’t see any. We did meet some crazy “wolf” people who knew every pack and the lead wolves etc. We had a lot of fun with “Bob” the bison who was hanging around our campsite watching him while Dave cooked. We saw a black bear by Tower Falls and finally more elk. The cows hid out during the day with their calves and only came out at night to feed. We didn’t see any elk calves.

This Bald Eagle was perched along the river in Hayden Valley also.

This osprey wasn’t too sure about Dave taking her picture!

We walked a lot of trails along the river!

Overall, the trip started off very nicely. After Yellowstone, we headed to Bozeman Hot Springs for the night and then off to Glacier NP with Cherie and Eric!