old faithful

I cant remember where I left off so I will start with Custer State Part. It is georgeous. Lots of wild animals and beautiful scenery. The camp grounds were lovely too. While there we went to Crazy horse (hang on I think I told you that part) We drove past Mount Rushmore and I have added a pic for you Pam. We went on to Bear Country USA which is a wildlife park created by a guy who was concerned about the declining numbers of native wildlife. The grizzlys were closed away from the public so that was disappointing but I saw a white buffalo (they are rare). The bears were great too but we had to take photos through the glass of the car windows so a bit foggy. We also did the Custer Wildlife Loop and saw more buffalo, antelope, Mule deer, White tail deer and prairrie dogs. (Which are very cute no matter what Mal and Tony say)
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Yesterday we went to Yellowstone National Park. As soon as we were in the gates we come face to cace with a grizzly bear. Apparently it is really unusual to see one so soon if at all. We saw Elk, Buffalo, Deer and a coyote up real close. Then shortly after it started to snow. Everything looked beautiful. We got out to take some photos and had a snowball fight too. That was fun. Again beautiful landscape but wouldnt want to live there in winter. So far my favourite places... Blackhills and Niobrara and Yellowstone take equal 2nd.
We went to see Old Faithful just in time to see it errupt. That was good.
We also went for a walk around another set of giesers. They stink but are beautiful.
We watched some buffalo fighting. It was thrilling. They are so huge and to see two if them go at it was another very lucky chance.
Some people are so stupid over here though. There are all these signs saying not to get too close and not to feed the animals but people do it anyway. One woman was so close to a buffali that we thought we would have award winning news coverage when she got attacked. Apparently the bear we saw attacked a car that morning and another car was rammed by a bull aelk and a van by a Buffalo.

We stayed in west Yellowstone last night just inside the Montana boarder. During the night a grizzly and two black bears came through the camp site. We actua;y atayed in a cabin, which was just as well as they took down and killed a cow in the paddock next to the camp site.

Today we went to a place called Bear World. It was fantastic. You got to get up close to the animals and we went on a truck ride through the parl and feed the big bears. We had just missed out by 30mins to be able to bottle feed the babies. We got to see a Moose here too.

It was much better than Bear Country USA that we visited the other day.

Tonight we are staying in a place called Moutain Home in Idaho. We are heading back towards Oregon as Mark has to fly home on sat. After that we will tour Washington State and Oregon and I will have the opportunity to interview at a couple of Native American schools.

Mal and Tony have been picking up applications for jobs all over the place.

Mal doesnt way much but from the smile on his face I would say he is enjoiying the trip.
He liked the Black hills SD and enjoyed our trip over the top of the Bighorn Mountains (they have no shoulders on the roads and it is a straight down drop). The road is very steep. on the way down Mal drove and the grade was 10% inxline. It was scarey. Beautiful scenery up there but they get about 4 foot of snow and it gets very cold and windy so NO thanks for me.

Tomorrow we head for Pendalton in Oregon and are going to have a lazy afteroon as the trip has been go go go...

Any way will try to catch you soon

Love Rosemaree and Mal.