Day 5 of Yellowstone trip. May 28, 2025.

Today, May 28, is Candace’s birthday. She said she turned 28 today. I am certainly not going to argue with her about her math. Candace said she would like to see animals for her birthday. Man O-Boy, Boy O-Man did we ever see animals. The weather was perfect, and the animals were everywhere. It was a fabulous day.

We started at 8:00 and made our way up the very crooked road that runs from Gardiner to Mammoth Hot Springs. We got to see the barracks where Wes lived while working here in the summers. That was fun.

We headed east towards Tower/Rosevelt Junction and then head further east through the Lamar Valley known as the Serengeti of the American West. There be animals there.

Things and places we saw:

Undine (UN-deen) falls a 60-foot waterfall. This is where we saw the Osprey nest.

Petrified Tree – I have seen quite a few Petrified trees that were all lying flat. This one was petrified while standing up right. You can read the picture of the sign that explains petrification process.

We learned about Glacial Erratic Stones (huge rocks that were moved by ice during the last ice age and as the ice retreated the rocks were dropped in erratic places).

Some of these erratic stones become nurse stones. You will see a lot of trees are growing up right next to one of these rocks. I am sure you know that trees generally produce thousands of seeds that spread out. Some of them do not survive the first few years of the seedling’s life. Some will land in just the right place next to one of these rocks. The rock will then nurse the seedling, providing protection from the killing snow, giving them shade during the heat of the day which would dry the ground, and the seedling will be roasted. Sometimes this relationship between the rock and the tree works out fine. The rock might be nudged to one side a bit as the tree grows. But sometimes the seedling will grow up and enter a crack in the rock and over the years the tree can actually split the boulder.

AND we saw animals, lots of them.

Bison. There are large herds of Bison in the park. The road took us through huge meadows with rivers running through. If they are in the distance they look like black spots or rocks. But as they get nearer, they are magnificent animals. The bulls are not good fathers in that they do not hang out with the mothers and babies. Most of the big herds are cows, babies and young bulls. We arrived here in Yellowstone at a great time to see baby bison. Some were clearly just a day or two old. They learn to walk almost immediately, and it was fun to see them.

Bears. There are black bears and grizzly bears. We saw black bears today. We saw a mother and two cubs. Black bears evolved to be able to climb trees. Grizzly bears lived in the plains and their feet and claws cannot be used to climb trees. But their strength and claws can toss and turn over a dead bison weighing 2,000 pounds. I did see and got a picture of a grizzly bear just before he attacked me and killed me. See the picture.

We saw a cayote strolling a path across a valley.

We made it across the Lamar Valley and saw thousands of animals. We exited the park at the Northeast Entrance to eat Lunch in a town 1 mile outside the park. We had lunch at the Log Cabin Café. The cabin was built in 1937 by Hannah G. Ole at the age of 56. The logs were all hand shaped. It is a great building but rather small. It seats maybe 35 people indoors and another 30 or so outside on picnic tables. The food was very good. I ordered the trout and was told they sold out on Friday. I order Carne Asada Fries which were great. Our waitress recommended the homemade Blueberry pie for dessert. But when I order it later, she said she just sold the last piece. When some new people came in, she recommended to them the blueberry pie. I grew suspicious. I ordered the Almost Better than Robert Redford dessert supposedly a family secret recipe. I got it and it was good, but it turns to be the recipe that my mother made that was called 4-layer delight. Oh well, so much for the family secret. Some people got the famous Pumpkin bread to eat there, and we also got two loaves to bring back for breakfast food.

The bathroom for the customers was located out and around the side of the log cabin. They had a guard dog tied to a guide wire. He was very friendly (see the video).

We then headed back through the Lamar valley to home. We saw more animals. We opted not to stop at every bison and bear. But we were still looking for elk and moose. We did not see moose. But more about elk in a second.

We had dinner at the Backcountry Bistro to celebrate our birthday girl. It is a new facility and has gotten good reviews. It was very good

The excitement began after dinner as we were relaxing, Amy and Candace had been outside to find a quite place to read. When slowly a group of 5 elk wondered across the hotel property. Specifically, they were munching their way down the grass filled ditch right by our building. Calls were made and we all joined them to watch the elk meander. Charlotte and Logan took up residents on two large rocks placed next to the ditch to prevent cars from driving into the ditch. At first the elk (5 of them) were 20 to 30 yards away. But as we watched and took pictures along with other folks, they kept their heads down and got closer to where we were standing, and where Charlotte and Logan were sitting on the rocks. It was a delight to watch them. We talked about how elk, deer, cows, bison all eat grass and wind up clipping the grass close to the ground but not too close so that the grass grows again. Just like your lawn. You cut it and days later you have to do it again. On the other hand, sheep and goats have a split lip which allows them to use their exposed teeth to eat the grass right down to the ground and in some cases, they eat the roots. The grass will sometimes not grow back after sheep or goats graze in a field. This was the source of the feuding and fighting between cattle and sheep farmers when there was open grassland for grazing in the old west.

But back to the elk tonight. Logan and Charlotte were sitting quietly watching as one elk crept closer and closer to his rock. I said that he might want to eat the taller grass right next to his rock. Sure enough, the elk glanced up at the kid on the rock and slowly began to nose toward Logan. Logan and Charlotte very quietly slid off the rock and stepped back a few feet with us. The elk just went back to eating. What an experience for the kids and adults.

This was a stupendous day!