Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Great American Bison

When I was a kid I thought my Dad was a government spy. I also thought that he was 19 years old. I was positive that he had never told a lie in his entire life (which is why I still won't eat broccoli becasue it will make little trees grow out of my ears). And I was pretty sure he knew the names of everyone in the world, because he always knew what to call them when they we driving poorly. "Get out of the way Joe!" "C'mon Suzzy! Use your blinker!"

Above and beyond anything else that I knew about my father, I knew that his favorite animal was a buffalo. Occasionaly as a child my whole family would pile into our 9 passenger van and we would drive for days and days (Texas to Wyoming) for the sole purpose of seeing some buffalo. When we finally arrived at the buffalo we would park the van and wait while my Dad and Devin counted the buffalo. They kept a tally of all the animals we had seen on the trip, from ground squirels to deer, and the vacation wasn't over untill we had seen more buffalo than all the other animals combine. We stopped for EVERY buffalo, even if it was dead... especially if it was dead.

Somehow, I have managed to look back on those family vaccations with a inexplicable amount  of nostalgia. So when Mark suggested we go to Yellowstone I was all in. We went with our friends Dan and Jacquie Bergquist. Here's a chronicle of our journey.

May 26th:
We arrived in Yellowstone today. It was snowing despite being May. Ten seconds after arriving at the park Mark had to pee, so we pulled off the main road, but he decided to hold it when we discovered that we had company.

That's 6 buffalo for our tally and we've only been here for 60 seconds! Dad would be so proud. Then, I taunted a buffalo: (in case you can't tell I'm holding a bag of beef jerky)

Then I lost count of all the buffalo:

We saw buffalo in the mist:

After some geysers and things not involving buffalo, the highlight of the day came. To understand my excitement about this you need to have familiarized yourself with "The Guy on the Buffalo" a classic you-tube musical. If you have not watched this you are FORBIDDEN from continuing this blog post and I  have graciously provided you with a link to it's glory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Lmkm5EF5E

Awesome right? So now that you've watched "The Guy on a Buffalo" you'll understand why this was the highlight of my trip. We were walking in West Yellowstone when we happened upon a shop with a bunch of taxidermy animals, western attire, and a sweet old lady with a camera. 


That is right ladies and gents, I am riding on a buffalo! I dun pa proud. 

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