Yellowstone (as promised)

So...I had hoped to show some pictures of some bears, moose and bald eagles, but unfortunately that isn't going to happen.
The day before we left on our little trip I told Lois that I needed to get another SD card to take with us. She said, "Well, why don't we empty two cards on the home computer and delete the cards and take them with us?"
"That works for me." I said.
And 48 hours later I filled one card that had less megabytes then I realized and we had brought along a card that was already defective and wouldn't read when it was placed in the camera. So we decided to empty the working card onto Lois' computer (a Mac) and just use it. When we got home we found that it had transferred more than one file repeatedly to her computer and there was a large file and a small file. In some case only small files and the transfer had repeated itself as many as 4 times. I have no idea why this happened (maybe because it was a Mac), but it was too late to fix because the original card was already deleted. Sigh.
Anyhow, I have one picture of a blue bird and an assortment of pictures Aly took.

 (be sure to click on the photos to enlarge them)

On our second day into the park we saw the same usual suspects, there were bison and elk and a number of eagles. Later in the day we finally saw our first bear.
The first grizzly we saw was a long ways off -- too far for any good pictures. The next bear was a black bear and I couldn't get a good picture of it through all the high grass. Aly, however, had better luck. Later we saw another grizzly and her two cubs.

We saw at least 6 or 7 bald eagles and a couple of osprey. That is the most I've ever seen in the park. I also think I am getting a little bit better at spotting them.

This year we went to a place near Fishing Bridge that we've never been before. We've been on Fishing Bridge before and just a little past it, but there was another 19 miles of road that we hadn't seen before heading to the east entrance. We didn't go the whole distance because it was late, but we drove to a place above Yellowstone Lake just before sunset and watched two-foot swells skim across the surface. It was like looking at the white caps on the ocean. 

 
After that we hurried off towards West Thumb and went to Grant Village and ate at a restaurant overlooking the lake from the other side. We got there just as it turned completely black outside and were relieved to get some food before everything closed up for the evening.
The following day -- Aly's birthday -- Lois' brother Ken took us down Henry's Fork of the Snake River in canoes. It turned out to be another windy day and even though we were headed downstream, for a while there we kept moving back upstream. After hours on the river the girls and their cousin eventually got tired of being in the canoes that they all got out and started wading downstream. In all we spent about five hours on the river that day. I was happy to be able to go this year.

 
We stayed at my brother-in-laws cabin and we had a great time. At night you could turn out the lights and see the Milky Way and just about every star there was up in outer space. I had forgotten how much I missed the mountains. Next time I'm going to have to try taking a picture of the stars.