A great weekend!

The work week ended quickly and I invited to a wonderful game of Disc Golf. The course was laid out in the 70's and apparently the people who created the natural course come back and play every once and a while. A natural course is without nets and you play to objects; tree stumps at Old Faithful. Unfortunately, I pull my groin putting an order away at work, not sure how really, but that did affect my game play just a tad.

I asked Michael if I should bring the bear spray and he replied that he had his speakers and that we were good. Oops. Grabbed my camera with one lens and my discs and we hit the trail. The course was a little shorter than what I was thinking, but the last time I played disc ended up talking to a sheriff, bribing some people and that was all on Halloween in Moab so it had been a while since I through and to add to that, an injured groin doesn't help throwing a Frisbee a long or accurate distance.

During hole 2, Michael threw to the left and found some bear tracks just a little smaller than my shoe, (Size 13). The tracks were going away from where we were walking from and we did a 360 degree look around and saw nothing. We played two more holes and as I put to the stump, Curtis is saying bear in a loud whisper. The bear was about 100 yards away, according to my depth perception, and we looked at it as we listened to some music blast from Michael's speakers.

Keeping an eye on this big guy, we walked to the bridge that was about 20 yards away and 20 feet up. Hiking up a slippery incline with a pulled groin isn't pleasant but I made jokes on the way to the bridge about how I would be the slowest one with this injury and they would have to come back for the camera SD card for what would be the final and great moments of National Park Bum. But since you're reading this, good news is I'm alive.

We stood on the bridge and waited for the beast to get off the course but to our dismay it felt like being a spectator. Jokes made on the bridge while watching the bear from a far it was on hole 3.

Do you think it wants to play fetch?

Do think it will respond to "FORE!"

You think you could hit it with a disc? I'll grab it...

What if we did throw and it caught it and returned it to play fetch. I mean there is no one around.

What if it's following us making commentary on our game or just wanted to jam to some tunes and just hang out?

There were more but I can't recall them at the moment. We walked back to the dorm that was about a mile away and had our buddy Tim drive us to my truck so I could grab Matilda. The four of us went back to the bridge and the grizzly had moved even closer to the bridge. We parked the cars and my 170-500mm lens was attached and I shot away. After fine tuning of the focus I started to look for the shot I wanted as I paced up and down the bridge looking at the angles and finally the bear moved to the right and was tearing up the grass on somewhat of a peninsula; the river made a ")" motion before going straight. In my head I saw river, grass, bear, grass, river, hot spring, trees, mountain, and blue sky all in the center from the bottom up and went with it.

Another worker showed up in his jeep, Norm, and joined in on the private viewing. We watched the bear for about 30 minutes or so. The bear grazed away from the river and moved to the left behind some trees and into the woods. We all headed back to the dorm to play some Monopoly which ended abruptly due to the game just taking way to long.

Michael and I hung out for a bit trying to plan the Blood Moon and decided to get some sleep and wake up early and do a hike. Much to our sadness, the partly cloudy sky was blocking the moon for the entire eclipse. With having seen that, I sent a text to Michael giving bad news and decided to call it a morning and went back to bed.

I woke up around noon and made my way to the EDR for some lunch. On my way back I went to the bridge where the bear was on Friday and sure enough, there he was eating more grubs. I forgot my camera and headed back to the dorm and asked Ryn if she wanted to join in on the bear watch and she just finished chopping off some hair and joined the tour. We made it to the bridge not even 10 minutes after I saw the bear and it was gone. We stood around waiting, waiting and waiting but nothing but the pure sound of a river, wind, nature and the sight of Old Faithful going off above the tree line.

We called it quits and drove to Grant Village just for a scene change. Every mile we went towards Grant, the more snow appeared on the sides of the road. A mile before the Grant/West Thumb intersection I pulled over for a winter panorama shot and climbed on the roof of Matilda to gain a slight height advantage. As far as Grant and Lake Yellowstone go, it's still winter there. It reminded me of what Old Faithful had last April. We just drove around and looked at the scenery.

We made it back to the bridge and nothing. We headed out to Fountain Flat Drive and saw two bison sparring from about 75 yards away. As we continued to drive I noticed more on the other side of the road and I parked Matilda for a bit as I scoped things out. As I was adjusting all the camera stuff, there was a [flock?] of Mountain Blue Birds sitting on the side of the road. I tried my best to get a shot of more than just one but we'll see how they turned out.

The last wildlife we saw for the drive were two female elks eating some grass by the river. The river was flowing quickly and was filled a dark military green color. She took some selfies and I got one with here and the elk. The day was filled with some strong gusty winds and overcast as far as one could see. We headed back to the bridge to see if my friend would show but no luck.

During dinner I was talking with a contractor, Ray, who was talking about traveling in the park and I mentioned I was done for the weekend due to a low gas tank. He offered a gas can from the back of his truck and I said that the weather isn't going to be great and said I would probably just walk the basin tomorrow anyway. I told him about the bear from the other day and sure enough, I met him back on the bridge where he spotted a much smaller bear, unaware of black or grizzly, and when I looked in the area, the opposite side of the bridge, I saw leaves moving but no bear.

I once again didn't have my camera and relayed that to Ray and gave him my number and said if he saw anything and can give a text or call I would appreciate it. Before leaving I pulled up NPB and showed him a picture of the big guy and we chatted for about ten minutes. During the whole time no bears made themselves aware and I said, "take care, good luck". Ray suggested I take the gas and I gave in. I took the tank to my car and poured it in the tank.  Five minutes later and Matilda was halfway full and asked how much he wanted for the gas and he said, "Nothing. Just helping someone out and next time I should return the favor".

Thank you for letting me hang out with all of you over the last two days, Curtis, Tim, Michael, Matt, Ryn.

Thank you Ray for the gas. That will bring one more day of joyful driving throughout the empty park and I really can't thank you enough!

Look at the shadow of the grizzly!

Keppler Cascades

6 Mountain Blue Birds.

Just an elk pretending not to be evil!

That's is for Friday and Saturday. Going out again tomorrow. What will it bring? Perhaps another night of writing and editing photos for four hours. Make sure you click the "facebook share button'"!

MacKeag