Yellowstone - roadkill, grizzlies and The Millers on set
Part 1 (pics!)
Last week, we were in Yellowstone for the first time in 11 years - and we had some animal incidents right away. On the first night there, I woke up at 3:30am to the sound of a bear ROARING down by the Yellowstone River behind the house. I KNOW WHAT I HEARD. We were staying at a friend’s house, so I politely went downstairs to put the dowel in the groove behind the sliding glass door and closed the window over the sink, lest we destroy their house with a bear coming in through the window for the cinnamon rolls.
Then, a few hours later, we left before dawn to get to the park and see animals. We did, indeed, see an animal. It looked like a semi truck hit an elk just ahead of us on Route 89 because it was so badly damaged. But when Tim went to dodge it, he inadvertently lined us up to catch air off more parts of the poor animal that were in the other lane! We hit it hard, catching a bit of air I do believe, but stayed in control.
I screeched, “Should we stop?”
“We’ll just stop after daybreak,” he replied. The man is the picture of calm when there’s absolutely nothing to be done about a situation.
Well, after the first hour or so in the park, we’d forgotten all about it - but when we finally got out, we were greeted with a noticeable smell under the car. I made Tim look. Yes, indeed, hair and carnage were lining the underside of the car.
“What should we do? Find a carwash???” I asked.
Tim promised me it would burn off with time. It took the rest of the week to do so.
We saw tons of bison, one of which stopped and spent a lot of time smelling the car, especially the back bumper. (We now know why.) We also saw a bull elk with his antlers shedding. (Although, we worried the dangling velvet might be a flannel shirt from an unfortunate hiker.) We also saw antelope - and when I commented that they are the most beautiful of all, Nelson replied, “Have you seen Ellie???” (❤️ !)
The guys spent most of the day not believing my bear story - so I followed Nelson to the outhouse at Slough Creek and played audio of a “roaring grizzly bear” through the vent until he finally had to laugh. “That’s what I heard,” was all I had to say.
Overall, in one of the most famous places in the world, we had the most fun laughing in the car. Because, after launching over roadkill, the car took on a party atmosphere. There were lots of jokes - most of them funny and all of them inappropriate. Kendall is the KING of saying the worst, funniest things. And Nelson is (too) skilled at the backhanded ROAST.
(Don’t let the Ellie comment fool you.)
Part 2 (pics!)
On our second day in Yellowstone, I told the boys I was going to “manifest a grizzly in a meadow” - which they teased me about all day. After an entire day of sightseeing and wondering if we could handle another second together, I reminded them that we’d soon be seeing a grizzly…
Tim literally interrupted me saying “…bear” — to slam on his brakes and shout “BEAR!”
There, in the meadow, a grizzly bear.
We were just coming down on the Beartooth Pass and just past the “Top of the World“!
We watched from the road - until it came up to the road. Then we watched from the car. As we watched, I asked them what they wanted me to manifest next.
Kendall said, without pause, “a bear mauling”… then with pause… “not the guy in the hat.”
Omgosh lol. He meant the woman who was openly pursuing the grizzly for a photo. I countered with manifesting a “moose in a meadow.”
Nelson replied, “Manifesting doesn’t work” … as we stood watching a grizzly in a meadow.
Pics and video here of the bear!
We drove thru Yellowstone to the beautiful and striking Beartooth Pass. It’s dubbed one of the most dramatic and beautiful drives in America.
The highlights: Nelson met a guy who insisted he feed a pop tart to a chipmunk. When Nelson went to do it, the guy said, “Not that one! The fat one!” The guy had an agenda.
I also bet Kendall he couldn’t scale a mountain side to get me a snowball. Pictured here is a tiny dot in black (Kendall) going up halfway before I begged him to come back because he might cause a landslide.
Tim got to fish the Clark’s Fork. This was his first little catch. The rest he caught out of sight of his witnesses were “bigger.”
We made huckleberry PB & Js (Nelson subbed in goldfish crackers) for a picnic up in the windy and cold (43 degrees!) mountain pass, and I enjoyed some long hair blown in with mine. We drove for hours, saw 3 grizzlies (the other 2 were at a great distance and we could have just as easily been watching a bale of hay), elk, bison and antelope.
We loved each other for a long while, but started to hate each other after about 8 hours in the tiny Malibu. I cast a weary glance at the clock. We were at least two hours from the house.
That was when we came across The Millers (have you seen the movie about the funny smugglers in an RV), and we started coming together again. The Millers were passing everyone - whether they could or not. When they passed a string of cars and almost hit a buffalo herd, we roared like fans in a championship playoff. Every curve was anyone’s game. We shouted and cheered and braced for their impact.
Beyond reason, The Millers kept going.
Yet, they couldn’t escape us.
No matter how crazy they drove, Yellowstone would do its thing and throw in a wildlife jam to let us catch up again. Nelson would say, “The show’s back on,” and we’d all lean forward and watch and argue over whether we’d stop if or when they blew a corner.
I don’t know if The Millers got to where they were going, but I do know they got The Chapples through the last 20 miles of the park. Once again, the wildlife of Yellowstone didn’t compare to the wildlife in the cars.