Yellowstone

Confession: I am not a outdoorsy kind of girl. And I have never claimed to be. Having the type of skin to blister at the slightest hint of heat, I can get sunburned just thinking about the sun. So, Mike knew in advance before we got engaged that I'm not the type of girl to go camping or fishing or anything else that involves being outdoors. And yet somehow he was surprised when I told him that my family had never been to Yellowstone before. (Hello! Family of three girls where camping was a dirty word. Poor Dad. He was always vetoed whenever he mentioned going camping. My idea of roughing it is staying in a motel with no cable.) Yet, somehow, Mike still convinces me to do these things (it must really be love). Hence, my first (and hopefully last, for a LONG time at least) adventure into Yellowstone National Park.

We spent the Labor Day weekend at the Steeds cabin in Island Park. Which, yes, has cable. So, you might not say this was roughing it per say, but it is surrounded by trees and bugs and wolves and nature and icky stuff like that. And I tend to like to stay away from that kind of thing. I actually like concrete and high buildings and being able to wear flip-flops and not think I'm being impracticle or going to sacrifice a toe to the great outdoors. Call me crazy. I'm a city girl.

Putting all my fears for wildlife aside, Big Mike gave Mike and I a guided tour of the park.

Here are the highlights:

I had never seen an elk before. Neither of the Mikes could stand for that, so our first day at the cabin, Big Mike drove us to the elk reserve, and on the way we stopped to take pictures of a Mama Moose and her calf:

And then on to the elk reserve:

The next day, Big Mike drove us into the park.

While we were driving into the park, suddenly we came upon a traffic jam. And if you've ever been to Yellowstone, you know what that means: wildlife sighting! This time, it happened to be a buffalo that was walking in between the cars. It came pretty close to ours!

Since we had limited time in the Park, Mike drove us straight to Old Faithful.

While we were waiting for the geyser to go off, another buffalo came walking right through, even with all the people around! I still maintain that it was the same buffalo as before. And it's new nickname: "The Stalker."

It was really pretty close to us.

Then, after waiting and waiting for Old Faithful to finally erupt, the spurting started.

Yeah.

Needless to say, we left before it finished going off. Not too impressed with Old Faithful. Again, not a nature girl. What can I say? I know. I should hang my head for even thinking that something like that could be boring, and all you nature-lovers out there can critize me all you want. I hold true to my statement. IT WAS BORING.

So, that concludes our adventure in Yellowstone National Park and my weekend with nature. And, Baby, that really should fill my quota for anything outdoorsy for at least a year.