Yellowstone Snow, Hungry Wolves, & the Tumble Inn

So I’ve been traveling in Wyoming for 11 days, kayaking & hiking, not to mention buying stuffed animals for my daughter—dinosaur (diplodocus), river otter, deer, yellow horse, dinosaur (pterodactyl), and something I’m forgetting I’m sure. We camped in the Grand Tetons and soaked at Thermopolis Hot Springs, where families around the pool exchanged wildlife stories of visiting Yellowstone. One family told how they saw a wolf eat a baby elk, which of course freaked the kids out (they nodded solemnly as the story was told). We saw a grizzly, several golden eagles, elk, mule deer, buffalo, and the biggest porcupine in the west. Yellowstone had an astonishing amount of snow—three feet deep as far as the eye could see on the high plateau when you first drive into the park on the southern end, passing Lewis Lake and West Thumb. Here’s a nostalgic neon sign we passed, in the Abandoned America category:

Now I’m glad to be home in Colorado, where it’s cool and rainy today.