Monday, August 2, 2010

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

There is a road you can take that goes through the park, it's 25 miles and goes in a loop.  The first animals we saw were some black tail prairie dogs.  There are several prairie dog towns in the park.

We saw some of the wild horses.  They have never been touched by humans but they are still very shiny and well fed.  We saw a few pregnant females and some colts.

This one was very close to the road.  They tell you to keep your distance, don't get out of your car.

We were told that the best time to see bufallo, or bison, and elk is either at dawn or dusk, so we went out both times, twice.  Elk were really hard to find.  We saw this one but I really had to zoom into him to get a picture.

The bison were easy to find during that time.  We were warned, however, that it was mating season, and bulls mean business.  Here was a lone bull about ready to cross the road to find a female.

Here's a whole herd, young ones and all.

This was an old one, ousted from the herd, that's what happens to the old males when a younger male wins over.

This was on one of our evening trips, the sunset was absolutely beautiful.

Check this out.

Even Bruno thought is was beautiful.

As the sun disapeared, we headed back to our campsite.
We ran into a herd of bison, on both sides of the road and in the middle of the road.  As we moved VERY slowly, with all the windows closed, they would cross behind us, just a couple of feet from the Jeep.  It was dark so I couldn't get pictures.  I wasn't about to open the window and use my flash.  It took us a while to get through them, but it was awesome.  They were so close, we could have touched them.

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