Даня уже написал о нашей поездке по верхнему кольцу, поэтому я просто оставлю пометки о наиболее запомнившемся, не соблюдая хронологический порядок.

Мне ну очень нравились поля с луговыми цветами! Еще мне понравилось то, что во второй день мы увидели очень много бизонов и мелких бизонят.

Я была впечатлена “встречей” с медведем! Думаю, мои впечатления были бы совсем иного рода, если бы он повстречался нам одним просто в лесу… Всё-таки хоть многие медведи и привыкли к людям и практически не обращают на них внимания, они не перестают от этого быть дикими и непредсказуемыми зверьми.

И к бизонам у меня тоже абсолютно не было желания подходить близко; некоторые смельчаки, однако, мой страх не разделяли. По-моему, просто глупо так рисковать здоровьем и жизнью.

Водопад в каньоне мне тоже понравился — в первую очередь, пожалуй, желтоватым цветом скал. Для меня это зрелище было чем-то новеньким.

Еще мне понравились Mammoth Hot Springs. Не знаю какие правильнее использовать слова для описания — у меня в памяти остались мраморно-белые вперемежку с кирпично-оранжеватыми ступени со струящейся по ним водой от которой подымается пар.

For our last full day in Yellowstone we had several objectives — see Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower Falls and as many animals as possible. We also wanted to collect the remaining stamps.

Our first stop was Canyon Visitor Center. We discovered that we passed the canyon itself a while back, but since we would have to take the same route home we decided to proceed to Tower Falls. The road there passed through some of the highest mountains we had to go through in the park and all the hills were covered in a thick layer of flowers of different kinds and colors.

The falls themselves were nice, but it was hard to impress us at this point after we’ve seen all the stuff that Yellowstone is really famous for. The part of the canyon here was pretty deep, but again, it got nothing on the actual Grand Canyon.

Next point on the map was Lamar Valley. We were told that it would be the best place to spot animals and it was also a location of hard to find stamp. Of course we wanted to see bears more than anything. Yellowstone, after all, is home to black and grizzly bears. Second on our list was a moose, then wolfs and coyotes and we have seen several bison by now.

What we didn’t expect was to see huge fields filled with bison. Big and small, young and old. Huge herds roam the lands of Yellowstone. We also managed to spot several more pronghorn antelopes, and we saw a bull elk with huge horns hiding in the forest behind the trees. But alas, no bears.

Our next destination was Mammoth Hot Springs. On our way there we encountered massive traffic. This usually is a sign of construction or an animal sighting. Seeing people running around and looking into the mountains I decided that I need to join the “search” party.

I saw one guy pointing into the distance, but I couldn’t see anything. I started using my 200mm lens that I had on the camera as a telescope and what do I see? Two round brown ears sticking out from behind an old thump. Could it be?

And right after that our fuzzy brown friend decided to come out. I started yelling for Alena and Eldar to drop everything and come see. It was a real wild bear roaming in the forest and paying absolutely no attention to all the people and their cars. We took several million shots and got back into the car. Our level of excitement was over the top. We were simply ecstatic.

At Mammoth Hot Springs Visitor Center we showed the pictures to a ranger and she told us that it was a black bear and taught us to tell the difference. Grizzlies have a noticeable hump on their back, smaller ears and are more uniform in color.

Then we drove up to the upper trail of Mammoth Hot Springs and took a short hike. Surprisingly (we thought we saw everything) we did end up liking the formation. Sadly our pictures didn’t capture the beauty of it.

And that was it for the main objectives. We arrived too late to Norris to get our last 2 stamps, but we had plenty already, so it was not important.

On our way back we stopped by Roaring Mountain — apparently an extremely hot mountain which nothing can grow on and it produces a hissing sound from all the vents that are located on it.

We did stop by a canyon on our way back and saw 2 pretty big waterfalls, but we were tired for any hiking and the sun light was coming right from behind the falls, which pretty much guarantees bad shots.

We also saw a lot of beautiful landscapes and again got stuck on our way back because of another huge herd of bison chilling on the side of the road. Naturally massive traffic formed.

The day was over. We managed to get to our hotel 10 minutes before the restaurant closure, ate our dinner and took off to beds. This was our last night at Shoshone Lodge and the next day we set out to Grand Teton National Park.

My memories of our vacation go more and more out of focus and transform into a beautiful bright cloud of warmth as time passes by.

The desire to keep at least some details sharp propels me to write this post about our Salt Lake City experience.

Salt Lake City was the last stop in our wonderful journey. The city itself has a rather small population of less than 200,000 people, but its metropolitan area is inhabited with a substantially larger population of over a million.

The city center was clean, wide-streeted and empty. Some of the tallest buildings surprisingly belonged to churches. The Capitol was very impressive, although it looked somewhat uninhabited from afar (probably due to lack of tourists and some construction equipment left sitting outside the building).

Houses on smaller streets looked very neat and cared for. Overall the city felt quite friendly, and for some reason reminded me of Toronto.

We stayed at Embassy Suits Hotel — and it was a pleasure. We didn’t have any energy to visit a jacuzzi, but impressive breakfast and manager’s reception, where alcohol and snacks were served, left me very satisfied.

On the day following our arrival to Salt Lake City we went to visit Antelope Island — the largest island in the Great Salt Lake. The island is inhabited by a variety of wildlife, including pronghorn antelopes and bison.

We were lucky enough to see an antelope peacefully resting not too far from the road side. Danya, who originally claimed that it wasn’t an antelope but a rusted bucket, ran closer to the animal and took a couple of decent shots.

We also saw a bunch of American Bison. According to Wikipedia, American and European bison are the largest terrestrial mammals in North America and Europe.

To be honest, I imagined bison to be even bigger than they are. They look kind of funny with their big furry heads and patches of naked skin on their massive thighs and backs, which are caused by winter coat shedding. Their somewhat lethargic calmness is deceptive though, since bison can attack if provoked and are able to run as fast as 35 miles/hour.

European Bison (Wisent), which is called Zubr in Russian, is one of the animals that stroke my imagination many years ago. Zubr is one of the symbols of Belarus, and I always wanted to visit Belovezhskaya Pushcha — a national forest where those animals can be viewed in their natural habitat. Now that dream in a way came true.

It is almost painful to think of bison’s fate throughout the 19th century, when multi-million bison population was almost driven to extinction by commercial hunting. I can’t fathom what purpose such a brutal extermination could have served.

We also saw a small animal, resembling coyote, and a big brown rabbit. On the lake’s shore numerous little birds fussed around looking for something to eat.

The lake itself was beautiful, and mountain peaks, covered in snow, added a lot to the view.

After our return from Antelope Island, we drove some more around the city, and stumbled upon a military museum. It was rather small, but still interesting.

On our last day we walked around the city again, and then took a shuttle to the airport, which was kindly provided by the hotel. Delta oversold tickets to our flight, but luckily, it did not effect us in any way.

We brought some Utah soil and stones from our trip, and arranged them in a glass vase. This home-made souvenir makes me smile every time I look at it.