Yellowstone Days 2 & 3; The 1st Day of School and a New Toy...

This post is a big one folks, so sit down, you'll be here for a while!

On our second day at Yellowstone, my Dad and I woke up early (6 am!!) and drove to Tower looking for some wildlife. It was beautiful and peaceful, and COLD! It was nice to not have as much traffic as well.

First we some two Sandhill Cranes. There pretty skittish birds, and my Dad thought they had chicks with them. They didn't, and that's why we were able to get some good shots. By the way, I used my Camera but I used the following lense:

When you get the lens hood on it, it's huge...and it's really heavy. The only downside to this lens is that when people see you get it out, they freak out and ruin any good chance of a good shot...more examples of this later.

Anyway, back to the sandhill cranes. They're really cool! My dad has some REALLY amazing photos of them. Mine are ok, this was my first shots with a 20 lb. lense -k-?

Next we found a blue herron. It was a miracle he didn't fly away, we were trying to be as quite and as unassuming as possible while shooting cartography (that's photographing from your car). But sure enough, as soon as passing cars saw my dad's ginormous lens sticking out of my window, they'd slam on they're breaks thinking we'd found a bear (rolling eyes).

We found this hawk next, so we pulled over. I love the depth of field, the bird and tree are sharp, but everything behind is out of focus. I was shooting about about 640, I think. I was using the 400mm lens, but my Camera has a crop factor which adds more focal length. Dad, if I'm explaining this wrong, just set me right in the comments :)

I love the one of him just sittin' there in the tree. SO cool.

Here is the Elk, that wandered through our campground at Canyon at least 4 times while we were there. This photo looks like I'm pretty close, but no, I was running around with that huge lens again and got this one (hand held-that's an accomplishment-the thing is HEA-VY!)

While my dad and I were out, we got out of the car to try and track down a pronghorn, and saw two coyote two. They're kinda hard to see, because we were really far away and because they blend in with the background really well. Hopefully you can see him...

Here's the Pronghorn, I was talking about earlier. Isn't he cool! We hiked up over a hill to get these shots.

Another Hawk...

After my dad and I got back, we had to fix the battery in the trailer, and then we headed out again to drive around and enjoy the park. We were driving around and we saw two male dear. We hurried to stop and get the Cameras out. My dad and I hiked around (we were back far enough to not scare the animals) to get some better shots. Everything was going well, until some dumb kid runs up at full speed to within 20 feet of the dear. My dad and I both told him to stop, so he wouldn't scare the dear away. He just got closer anyway!! This happened right when the Dear was about to step into a well lit area with beautiful flowers all over the place. We were SO mad. This is just one of many examples of how careless most tourists are around wild animals.

In this photo, we stopped when we saw another buck, and as soon as my dad and I got our cameras out, a couple of tourists ran up the hill and behind the dear to try to get a shot. This was the last shot, and only real one that I was able to get before he ran away from the dumb people.

This next photo is actually out of order...I hate when things are out of order!! This is from day 3, when we moved from Canyon to West Yellowstone to camp. It took a while to get there because of all the construction. Then we took the boys to the swimming pool at my parents hotel. There are videos (also out of order) at the bottom.

I love this photo, He's turned around just enough to see his eye, as if he's looking over his shoulder monitoring the situation. Right when I was taking this photo, an asian guy jumped right in front of me and started taking pictures. So, TJ starts yelling at him to get out of the way. He then proceeded to mock this guy for a few more minutes...kinda funny, but maybe too far. Wait, my husband, too far?....nnnooooooo.

My last photo of the day, two hawks in their nest. Pretty cool!

Ok, now onto part 2!

Today was Drews first day of Kindergarten. It was really exciting! I almost cried, but held it in. I tend to lose all control when I cry. Drews favorite part of school, was when his teacher told the class about her magic necklace. When she puts it on, she speaks Spanish! Drew was absolutely beside himself with this. Even when another (one year older too, by the way) boy told him the necklace was NOT magic, Drew said, "Michael, the necklace is magic, the teacher knows more than you!"

So overall, it was a successful experience. I hope it continues this way!

Ever since Yellowstone, TJ and I have felt the itch to get a trailer. We looked all over for a tent trailer, saw some really ghetto ones, and then this came up on KSL a couple of days ago. TJ worked really hard to get it, beating out another guy and he brought it home today. It's perfect for us, it's small enough for us to tow with our van, but big enough to sleep six. So, we'll be able to use it for a long time.