Yellowstone was amazing--bear and pronghorn (which are NOT deer) and elk and actual deer and wolves--we saw WOLVES and herds of bison. We hired a private guide for our last day, and he works on the wolf restoration project in Yellowstone, so he had a radio to know exactly where the wolves were, which was fantastic, because one crossed directly in front of us:
which is funny, because you can see the people in the background looking for the wolf in the other direction. This is a crappy photo, but it was through a bug-splattered windshield and holy crap, wildlife is not cooperative. At all.
Except for this bison, who graciously consented to be part of my "Animals Doing Animal Stuff" collection of photos:
This blurry bear was wandering too close for too long along the side of a busy road. The rangers call this loitering, and they discourage this behavior by using negative reinforcement: they shoot loiterers in the bum with rubber bullets. Which, since it's not my bum, is hilarious. This bear was lumbering around, very slowly munching on stuff, and the ranger took aim, and bzing! The bear took off running in the other direction. I have decided rubber bullets may be the answer to my child discipline questions.
Of course, this picture of a ground squirrel type animal is perfect. S made me take it. It's cute, but I wish my other pictures were this clear.
The next picture is simultaneously my favorite and least favorite moment from our entire trip to Yellowstone. One day, in the middle of the week, it was really quite warm, bordering on hot. The rivers and streams and lakes look so inviting after a 5 mile walk. I begged M to let us pull over and stomp in the stream some. "Up to my ankles," I said. "It's so refreshing," I said. "I'm so hot," I said.
So, indeed, we pulled over, we scrabbled down this little embankment and found ourselves all alone in this lovely bend of this beautiful stream. I rolled up my pants, took off my shoes, and waded into the refreshing coolness. The water is so very very clear, and the rocks in the creek bed were slick and smooth and beautiful. Despite my tempting description of the refreshingness, M declined to come in. E was slow getting off his shoes, but he was game for a little wade in the stream. S was gung ho, because, of course, S is gung ho about everything. Mostly. He's wading around up to his knees when M encourages him to return to shore and take off his pants so they don't get wet. (Which, as it turns out, was some fantastic advice.)
Lil' S returns to the water squealing with delight at the cool, briskly flowing water. M was so enjoying S's display of mini-adorableness that he snapped THIS photo (that, by the way, I promised S I would NEVER publish or reproduce, so let's keep this between us) as S uttered the best last words ever spoken by a person enjoying a brisk stream: "Ooooh! It feels so good on your thighs!!"
Those, were, in fact his last words before flapping his arms wildly and falling completely into the river.
As you can see from this photo, the water is flowing quite strong up against the young man's Phineas and Ferb underwear. It swiftly picked the kid up and started dragging him downstream. The aforementioned shiny, slick and smooth rocks prevented him from getting a foothold. And after a moment or two, he had drifted to where he could no longer stand anyway. M is scrambling along the embankments to try to get ahead of the drifting platypus-underwear-wearing kid. E is panicking and dropping things. I am splashing and stumbling through the water to get to him.
At some point, it became clear to me that if I was going to save my kid before he started floating down the Hayden Valley (where EVERY tourist in Yellowstone would be able to photograph our parenting failure) towards the beautiful falls we had photographed earlier in the day, I was going to have to jump in and swim.
Which is what I did.
He was actually far enough ahead of me that I had to swim for him. I grabbed him by the collar in dramatic fashion, and dragged him to a log mired on the bank.
It was quite a moment, one of those moments that as a parent seem to last forever in super slo-mo. When it is impossible to calculate the number of thoughts going through your brain:
"How will I explain this to my parents? The cops? No one will believe that we tried to rescue him. The people at dinner last night will recall the whisper fight we had about his $11 pasta that was untouched. Will a bear eat him? How long 'til he gets hypothermia? Does this water have flesh eating bacteria? M is never gonna forgive me. Will this be on CNN? Will I be the next Tan Mom neglecting my child? Will anyone care that I was trying to enrich my child's life through travel and inadvertently let him drown? Will the headline read, 'Where's Perry?' Holy crap! This water is freakin' cold! Damn, that kid makes the WORST choices. What is WRONG with him?"
As we all sat on the embankment catching our collective breath, E came along. He brought with him our shoes and socks. M still had S's dry pants. He was able to redress in a dry sweatshirt from the car, his dry pants, and his dry socks and shoes.
I had dry socks. Only dry socks. Soaked sweatshirt, t-shirt, sports bra, pants, underwear. The whole shebang. I wrung out my clothes as best as I could, and forced M to roll my shirt up in the window so it could air dry en route to Old Faithful. (He protested, saying that was entirely too country to have clothes flapping outside the car. For real? I'm soaked in 52 degree water from neglecting my child in a stream in the middle of nowhere and the shirt outside the car is what's country?)
We went to the Old Faithful lodge for a snack before continuing on. I literally left a trail of water drops on the floor as I walked around the lodge. Just another reason to be happy we went home to a hot shower in a hotel room and NOT a campground.
I clearly can't be trusted with my own kids in the wilderness.
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