This is the sad day that we have to leave Yellowstone National Park. The cabins up here at Mammoth are GREAT!

My photo of an elk turned out horribly with cars behind it and most of its body cut off by my poor framing, so I present you with a marginally better shot of a mule deer without hooves. We’ll miss you deer, elk, bears, porcupines, birds, squirrels, lichen, bison, and sulfurous-billowing-gas-clouds-of-rotten-egg-smell that was somehow endearing. We hope to catch up with some eagles, black bears, wolves, and a grizzly or two on our next visit.

We drive down the road and wave goodbye to the bison who don’t seem to care one iota that we are leaving. Next time, we’ll bring spicy buffalo snacks and see if we can’t cement better intra-species friendships.

Okay, so we had to do that one touristy thing that you think you can live without when you’re a rebel and rail against all that is normal. I present you with Old Faithful Geyser.

One last quick stop at West Thumb Geyser Basin to ogle the hot springs, sniff the air, taste the mud, cook a fish, eat some space chicken, and then it’s adios el Parque Nacional de Yellowstone.

And hello, moose! In the Grand Tetons National Park.

Oxbow Bend with the Tetons in the blue background as the colors of fall are about to give way to winter. Once winter sets in, Jackson, just south of here, becomes a skiers’ mecca. We, on the other hand, will be experiencing a near year-round form of summer, not so hot as our Arizona summer, but certainly not winter by any stretch of the imagination. Makes one wonder, just what are these two parks like at that time of year? Seeya later, Wyoming.