We're Back

[crown_of_antlers]

We returned a littler earlier than expected due to the weather. Yellowstone was not overly crowded (yet), but the weather consisted of icy rain and hard winds which create the type of cold that goes through your flesh and chills your bones. As a result we spent much of our time hunkered down inside the RV reading. Finally we figured that if we're going to stay indoors and read we may as well be back at the house.

So...here we are.

Comments

[darth_eldritch]

That sucks. I figured you would at least get a few days of relaxing in nature before the Memorial Day weekend crowds.

At least you didn't have any real troubles like roaming bears.

[crown_of_antlers]

At least you didn't have any real troubles like roaming bears.

Actually....LOL

We had pulled the car over because there were three yearling grizzly cubs running along the side of a hill. I put my window down and was sticking my zoom lens out the window to get a picture when Mama Grizzly suddenly came out of a ravine near the road. She was a mere twenty feet away from me. We made eye contact. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I could see the whites of her eyes WITHOUT looking through my zoom lens.

Fortunately (for me at least), she was more annoyed by the other people who had stopped along the road and had gotten out of their cars. Yes, people were that stupid to get out when there were bears who were only around a dozen yards away. No one was hurt, but people nearly tripped over themselves to get back to their cars.

There was talk in the ranger station that a tourist was gored by a bison after getting too close to it.

[darth_eldritch]

Wow, that is scary.

Yes, people were that stupid to get out when there were bears who were only around a dozen yards away.

All of these potential Darwin's Award winners. I'm sure Nature thinks we are overpopulating the planet.

There was talk in the ranger station that a tourist was gored by a bison after getting too close to it.

Yep, they gotta pet/feed the critters, or get those selfies!

[crown_of_antlers]

At one place when we stopped so I could try to photograph a gray fox there was a woman nearby who told us that three bears have been euthanized already because of campers leaving food out in their campsites. The food attracted the bears which came into the camp and attacked the campers.

I really hate it when the animals pay the price for tourists being stupid. Every single site in the campgrounds have instructions about how to handle food so that you don't draw bears, yet so many people don't follow the instructions.

[darth_eldritch]

This is infuriating. People today are just awful with their lack of consideration and respect. And education. I bet the signs are in clear pictures, too. But, no. We gotta leave our food laying all about. Do they keep their kitchens back home that way?

[crown_of_antlers]

I bet the signs are in clear pictures, too.

As a matter of fact they are indeed fully illustrated, clearly showing how to keep everything packed up.

It's the same way with the geyser areas. There are signs clearly saying to stay on the boardwalk, but every year people step off of them and approach the geysers. It was just last year that a tourist was literally melted when he got close to a geyser. All they found of him was a shoe with part of a foot in it.

[darth_eldritch]

Plot bunny! Gilvoth and Neloth open up a nature park filled with hungry bears. Tourists can come and camp out and make themselves comfortable as they typically do. Surefire way of getting rid of idiots.

It's the same way with the geyser areas. There are signs clearly saying to stay on the boardwalk, but every year people step off of them and approach the geysers. It was just last year that a tourist was literally melted when he got close to a geyser. All they found of him was a shoe with part of a foot in it.

When I was stationed in Hawaii I heard all the time of tourists getting injured for stepping on barely cooled lava flows with live magma underneath. Or getting eaten by sharks because they ignore the clearly marked signs that dawn and dusk are the most dangerous times and sharks are in the waters all the time.

[crown_of_antlers]

Plot bunny! Gilvoth and Neloth open up a nature park filled with hungry bears. Tourists can come and camp out and make themselves comfortable as they typically do. Surefire way of getting rid of idiots.

I can see them sitting in the park's main office, stuffing themselves with treats, while they scry and watch the morons destroy themselves.

When I was stationed in Hawaii I heard all the time of tourists getting injured for stepping on barely cooled lava flows with live magma underneath. Or getting eaten by sharks because they ignore the clearly marked signs that dawn and dusk are the most dangerous times and sharks are in the waters all the time.

After the things I've seen and heard about in Yellowstone, what you are describing doesn't surprise me a bit. So many people think that the warnings don't apply to them.