Yellowstone recap

As you know, I intended to update regularly with videos on my trip to Yellowstone, but that was a bit more involved than I anticipated.  Mostly because I was pretty exhausted at the end of the day.  I will continue working on them, but they will go up once I get home.

In the meantime, here's a quick recap.  For those who might be wondering how I can afford to go to Yellowstone on my meager income, this trip was planned and paid for by my parents.  This was a big family trip they always wanted to do, and they've been talking about it for years.  I am immensely grateful to them for this amazing vacation.

The first thing I think everyone notices about the park is how big it is.  I knew how big it was but experiencing it is something entirely different.  We saw almost all the wildlife you might hope to see: moose, elk, deer, pronghorns, bison, marmots, chipmunks, birds galore, a coyote, six black bears, and two grizzlies.  The geyser basins are eerily amazing.  Beautiful, but it's unnerving to think that I'm standing on top of a gigantic volcano that makes all these pretty displays.

My wife and I also hiked up to Specimen Ridge, home of Yellowstone's petrified forests.  The guidebook described the trail as "inhumanly steep," which is an understatement.  At the top, we spent several hours examining the trees and logs, and I even brought a portable microscope to check out the tree rings.  That's one of my lesser micrographs above.

All in all, an amazing trip, and I'm still processing it all.  I can't wait to go through the hours of video we shot.  Trying to edit together coherent videos will be a lot of fun.

Especially the grizzlies.  Did I mention the grizzlies?  My mom spotted two of them, and we filmed and photographed them for about five minutes.

Grizzlies.  It was awesome.

Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com.