Animals.

The views in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons are pretty great, but one of the most exciting parts of the trip was animal spotting!  We'd look out the windows with determination, and someone would scream as soon as they got a glimpse of an animal. Like some type of military drill, my dad would pull the car over immediately and we'd all sprint out, cameras at ready. We drove around for hours, and hiked for even longer to catch a glimpse of some of the animals native to the American West. Not surprisingly, most of our "big" animal sightings came when we least expect it. Here is our animal spotting checklist.

Buffalo.

Our first buffalo sighting was pretty spectacular. We were walking to the Morning Glory pool, about a mile from Old Faithful, when I spotted a buffalo in the river. Or, to be more specific, spotted tourists spotting a buffalo in the river :) He stepped out of the water and walked right through the crowd of spectators, completely un-phased. Chris might have gotten  little to close, but that's a different story. 

After that first sighting, we couldn't stop seeing buffalo. We drove through the Lamar Valley near sunset, and came across an entire heard. There was one crossing the road, one hiding in the woods near the Grand Canyon, and huge herds in Grand Teton National Park. As we saw more and more buffalo, we got bolder and bolder, and Dad and Chris had some pretty intense stare downs with the beasts. 

Elk. 

"Look, horses!" Mom screamed. Turns out they were elk, herds of them, in Mammoth Hot Springs village. We didn't get a chance to get too close. The park rangers were intensely guarding the herds to make sure no one got within a wide radius. Probably for the best... We then saw another, much bigger elk on the side of the road a few hours later. 

Black Bear. 

Can you see it? We couldn't really either, but we saw a line of cars stopped so decided to join the crowd. Look closely at the black dot :) 

Badger. 

No picture, but trust me we saw it! This was dad's favorite animal spotting. 

Moose. 

We saw one from far away while driving, but then Chris spotted one right by the side of the path during a bike ride. We all pulled over and got a great glimpse of a mother and baby moose eating. 

Grizzly Bear. 

This was the white whale of our trip. Chris swore he saw one during our first day in Yellowstone... that sighting was debated thoroughly and is now known as the Great Grizzly Bear Hoax of 2014. At the end of the trip, Cassie spotted one from the car as we were leaving Yellowstone. There was a picture this time, so we know it's real :)

We'll have to hone our wolf spotting skills for next time.