Wild World Encounter-First Footsteps ..June 27, 2018

As Spring becomes Summer, many of our wildlife neighbors are busy rearing their little ones teaching them to roam and fly and it is so fun to watch. Although wild by nature, there is a calmness to these animals that grows my desire to experience more of their wild world beyond our local area. So, we loaded up the car and headed out on a road trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, more than 1200 miles from home, nearly 3000 miles total round trip including all the side trips through the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Yellowstone, is the world's first national park established in 1872 preserving more than two million acres of wilderness land and fresh water from mining, development, hunting, and hopefully poaching, of wildlife. Although many of the animals migrate beyond the Park's boundaries, once inside we immediately began searching for finding and watching bears, elk, antelope, marmots, coyotes, foxes, bison, beavers, wolves, mountain lions, various birds, deer, fish to name just the main ones. 
Just as amazing is the Super Volcano underlying the greater Yellowstone area which fuels more than 10,000 hydro-geothermal features, more than 50% of the world's total including over 500 geysers, along with thousands of hot springs, mudpots, fumaroles and limestone terraces. 
Grand Teton, the much smaller neighbor to Yellowstone, has it's own magnificent landscapes of waterfalls, rivers, valleys, meadows, and the namesake mountain peaks along with similar wild animals. 

The whole time it was a bit scary, but amazing to know that we were sleeping, picnicking, hiking and driving around and above this gigantic, ancient but alive caldera, wild creatures often not more than a stone's throw away, traveling through land that may not be much different than when Native Americans and other indigenous people called it home for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. 

Over the next few days as I post photos of our adventure, hopefully you too will enjoy the sights of our wild land and animal encounters. 
With Peace & Love, 
Madi