Yellowstone Nat’l …and Bison, Too

Happy Sunday Chroniclers! We’ve been out on the road a full week!

Well, today’s a travel day, so we’re up and I’ve got chores to do.  Gotta break down the site and get ready for the 300 miles looking at us today. 

But let me tell you about yesterday! As you know, Mrs Francois got everyone up dark and early to see wilderness at its grandest. 

We were not disappointed. After about a ninety minute drive, we came upon a tour bus that was stopped in the middle of the roadway with its four-way flashers on. Picture this: three carloads of Southern Californians, stopped in the middle of a forest. There are only two-lanes, three cars, a bus, and no other vehicles moving within a seventy-mile radius. The emotions are initially confusion, and then rage starts to build. Fists start to ball, windows begin to roll down, palms are poised to slam down on horns, and then …we notice a bull elk peering around a bush, looking both ways before crossing the street. A few seconds more and he was followed by at least fifteen more elk, some bulls, a few mama elk and then the babies.

Awwwwww. 

The car got all warm and fuzzy. It was magical. McCroc sniffled. He claimed that a bug flew into the car and then into his eye. 

I cannot say what happened in the other cars, but I hear that a bug flew into the New Guy’s eyes too. 

Onward. We drove about thirty more minutes and there they were, a large herd of bison. Rambling through a pasture about 50 yards from the road. Every car out stopped to marvel at these magnificent animals. We stopped, along with about 50 other tourists and watched the beasts for about twenty minutes. They ate, moved and ate some more. It was pretty cool. Most of the people watching were adults, but we all stood around watching and looking on with the wide-eyed amazement of the youngest onlookers. 

After we’d watched for a while, we looked at one another, grinned & giggled as if we were preschoolers who had just played and won our first game of hide and seek. We jumped into the cars and decided to move to the next turnout to discuss what we had just seen over lunch. I mean it was 8:30 already and we were due, right?  

We pull into the turnout around the hill and again, another herd. This herd was much further away, say three or four hundred yards, but no less exciting to watch. We sat in the cars, ate our sandwiches and the HB walked around and treated everyone to an experience long forgotten: Golden Oreos. We watched deer play in a pond on the other side of the road until they tired and ran into a nearby forest.  Not a bad day.  

Quietly, I wondered what the Francois’s were doing.

After we ate, we got into the cars for the return trip to the RVs. As we rounded the bend where we had seen the first herd of bison, we noticed that they had made their way across the street and were now on the other side of the road drinking water from the creek. The crowd stopped to watch had doubled in size and the American Buffalo were actually much closer than when we’d made our first observation of this group. We were now caught up in gridlock— Wyoming style. 

We decided to pull off and McCroc said, “Dang. I wish we had gotten to see them cross.  That would have been cool.”

Just as we came to a stop and almost before McCroc had shifted into park, Mrs. McCroc was out of the back seat and chasing Mrs. New Guy down the side of the road, toward the herd!  

“Hey! Wait for me!” Mrs. McCroc yelled out to Mrs. New Guy, in hot pursuit, bringing her cell up to video the whole scene. 

The New Guy, McCroc and I all stood back, aghast at what we were witnessing. “WAIT! COME BACK!” McCroc yelled after the duo.

“THAT’S HOW PEOPLE GET ON YOUTUBE!” The New Guy yelled.

It was of no use. The wives had been sucked into the vortex of bison spectators as if by hypnosis.

We just watched helplessly until they came back of their volition. Hey, someone has to tell the story of what happened. Discretion is the better part of valor.

We have the pictures…you’ll see them, when we get back to some sort of civilized area where they have the modern convenience of WiFi.

We headed back to the RVs to find the instigator, Mrs. Francois, standing outside of their rig, waving to us, wearing her PJs, bathrobe, fuzzy Crocs,with a stuffed zebra she calls Stephanie under her arm. She looked well rested.

One band, one sound.  Drink ‘em if you got ‘em!

#coffeehousechronicles