Saturday, June 11, 2022

Buffaloes and Bears up Close

Yesterday, since we are in Wyoming at present at around 7300 feet in elevation for the past couple of days we saw quite a few buffaloes. One of these fellows we saw lying next to the paved road when he decided to get up and just stand on the road instead of in the high alpine grasses to the right of us. He just stood there as if to say to the two cars there on the road, "I'm here! What are you going to do about it" like he had all the time in the world. (which he did). No wise person confronts a buffalo simply because they kill more people in American than any other animal so they should be respected for what they are: COMPLETELY WILD! in a way that few things are anymore.

A few days ago we rode the motor boats On Jenny lake to the trails there in Teton National Park with many other people. One man near me was up on some rocks and saw a marmot and my wife walked ahead of me while I had a little lunch from a backpack with a friend from Mt. Shasta traveling with us but in a separate car. We met in Jackson, Wyoming to do some touring and hiking together. While my wife walked up to Inspiration point on the trails there after we got off the boats with my friend's girlfriend, she spoke of a cinnamon colored black bear she saw while hiking. Since there were many people on the trail the bear was trying to hide from everyone behind a tree so she saw the bear peek out from behind the tree and this made her very happy. Seeing a bear (either grizzly or black bear is an eventful experience as long as it is also a safe one. 

But, I prefer driving in a car seeing a buffalo that we saw many many of yesterday fairly close to us. We also saw a herd of about 300 of them while traveling north from Jackson and the Tetons to where we are now.

IF we are lucky we plan to go north into Canada as well on this trip meeting our friends various places along the way.

By the way, you can't go into Canada now unless you are fully vaccinated and contact the Canadian Government within 72 hours online of your trip into Canada.

Also, the Ferries which also carry cars and trucks in addition to passengers between Canada and Anacortes and the ferries between Victoria and Port Angeles aren't working. So, if you are in Victoria you likely have to either drive to Vancouver and drive south on Interstate 5 into the U.S. in Washington State or do something else like fly between VAncouver and Seattle or something like that. I suppose you might be able to rent space on a Seaplane too and fly to Seattle or Port Angeles too but moving much luggage could be a problem on a seaplane ride. I have flown out of Victoria on a tourist ticket on a seaplane with no luggage and it was quite fun when my wife and I did that! 

Note: I just remembered that Victoria is on an island so you have to ferry from the island to Vancouver and then drive to the U.S. on Interstate 5. The inter Canadian Ferries are running just not the ones between Canada and the U.S.

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