Yellowstone Day 5 - Close Encounters of the WILD Kind!

Now here's a FREAKY tale.  In the morning when Dennis and I were laying in our tent, putting off getting out of out warm sleeping bags, we head Nathan outside our tent.  He had fallen asleep in the  lounge chair in his sleeping bag by the fire last night, so had spent the night outside.  From our tent we heard Nathan telling one of his brothers that he had been attacked by a mountain lion.  Dennis and I just rolled our eyes at Nathan's story, figuring he had just had a wild dream.  It wasn't until we got up and out of the tent did Nathan show us these three puncture holes in the bottom of his new sleeping bag.  They hadn't been there before.

He told us that he woke up when he felt something tugging at his bag.  He opened his eyes to see a mountain lion was doing it with his teeth.  I guess the mountain lion was trying to figure out what Nathan was because when he saw Nathan wake up, he let go and went into the trees nearby where he stayed and watched Nathan for a long time.  Poor Nathan was just too scared to move or even yell, for the rest of the night.

I couldn't believe it until I saw the holes and a few large feline footprints near-by.  Can you imagine how scared he was?  Poor Nathan.   I was freaked out just thinking about it.  I'm sure Nathan will be sleeping in the tent for the rest of the trip.  Had it been me, I'd be sleeping in a hotel for the rest of the trip, no doubt!

After breakfast, we broke up camp and loaded up the car to drive south to camp at Grant Village on Lake Yellowstone.  We were glad to be leaving that blood thirsty lion behind.

Hey, What's that guy doing in the carpool lane?

Of course, it wasn't long before we came across a large herd of bison, and we stopped to watch them do what they do.  It is fascinating to watch them.

Lukie with his new buffalo toy and Alex watch the herd from the hood of our car.

Nate gets a closer look with the binoculars.

This guy was kind of close to our car, but he was looking away and doing nothing more than slobbering and grunting.

Suddenly he turned around and started heading straight toward us - Not charging or anything - but coming right at s nonetheless.  We all freaked out and jumped into the car.  Whew - until we realized we had left Luke sitting on the hood of our car!!! Lightning fast Dennis jumped out and scooped little Lukie off the hood and safely into the car.  It turns out that the buffalo changed direction and wandered off looking for a tasty wildflower, but we decided to stay in the car and continue our drive.  To many close encounters with wild animals for one day.
This hot spring in called the dragon's mouth, and it is aptly named because steam pours out like smoke, water laps out as a great tongue regularly like a wave pool, and it makes a loud growling roar, just like a dragon.  It was my favorite hot spring, I think.
We made it to Grant Village, and got our camp all set up before some of the boys took off to explore our little corner of the great Yellowstone Lake.
Luke watches the boys play from a small bridge.
Dylan and Nate do some surfing on a log in the lagoon. 

We take the long way back to camp, hiking up to the old bridge and across.

Later we drove to another part of the Lake where the boys tried their hand at fishing again.  It was simple beautiful out there on the lake.  So quiet except for the frequent splash of fish jumping out of the water - which was the only time we saw any fish.  We never caught any.  It seems the only wild animal we didn't encounter today was a fish.  
Nathan took the time to perfect his stone skipping technique across the glassy surface.

I don't have a picture, but for me the funnest part of the day was tonight.  Driving back to camp, Dennis dropped the 4 older boys and I off at the ranger station for a ranger presentation.  The presentation was o.k., but when it was over it was pitch black dark, and we realized we had to hike a trail back to our campground and we had  no flashlight.  We started down the trail in the dark, and soon caught up to another group that were in the same situation - it wasn't dark when the ranger talk started - so we are all in it together.  I think the other group were LDS too.  They informed us that their soon-to-be-Eagle Scout was leading the way, so we confidently followed.  We had fun laughing and joking as we hiked along in the dark, though I would have been freaked out if Caleb or Luke had been with us.  It was fine.  The boys thought scary made it great.  I was just hoping not to have another close encounter with a wild animal. There were a few times when I realized that the ground dropped off both sides of the trail.  Stay on the trail!  Then we came to a swinging bridge, of all things, and the excitement rose a notch.  Swinging on a rope ridge in the dark.  Does it get any better?  Finally, our traveling companions had to take a different direction, because the were camped in a different loop, so we were on our own.  I made an educated guess as to where to turn off the main path, and after following it a short distance we saw a light.  Guess what? It wasn't any old light.  It was actually Dennis' lantern!  We not only guess right on our loop, but hiked right into our very own campsite.  Not bad for hiking in the dark.  Did I mention I was a Summiteer?  Who needs a compass or a flashlight when you've got me?  Of course that trail would have been no big deal in the daytime, but at night it became a real adventure.  It was just so fun and scary and I thought it was cool that our own light was the first one we saw coming through the woods.

Back at camp, we had run out of propane for the stove, so Dennis cooked dinner pioneer style, over the open fire.  He thought it was great.  Did I mention Dennis is an Eagle Scout?  And even though we had no fish again, and we were even out of spam, dinner was great.  I think food tastes better cooked over the fire, anyway.

Luke pretending to be a bison, butting heads with Dennis in an attempt to show male dominance.  Not convincing.

Smore's anyone?