Wyoming Creatures

Okay, so Roel and I spent 9 days in wonderful Jackson, Wyoming. It's nestled below Grand Teton National Park, the north side of which is a mere seven miles south of Yellowstone. The town itself is a modern Old West town. Get out your cowboy boots and hat. It was so great to go in the off-season, when we didn't have to fight (other) tourists, and we could meet the locals in their more natural state. You get the feeling that most people know everybody else, and a love of the wild and nature prevails above all.

One of Roel's and my favorite parts of the Tetons and Yellowstone is the animals. We are now quite familiar with moose (the plural of which, I have finally learned at age 27, is moose), elk (the males' bugling sounds like an eerie monster in the woods!), bison (turns out that buffalo were called buffalo because the first explorers knew about the water buffalo in Africa and Asia and thought, "Oh look, they have them, too," but not so. Therefore, what we have known as buffalo, modern biologists call bison.), pronghorns (the 2nd fastest animal in the world, they can run up to 70 miles an hour; formerly known as antelope (see note on bison), these are the cutest little guys, with pure white bellies and rear ends!), mule deer (another ADORABLY sweet animal with the biggest ears!! Roel and I came upon 4 of them (2 fawns!) while hiking, right there next to us in the woods - our favorite part of the whole trip), ravens (did you know that, in addition to "caw, caw," they also say, "pikkuppikkuppikkuppikkuppikkuppikkuppikku"?), magpies (look like beautiful black and white birds from a little distance, but up close you see green and blue in their black feathers!), uinta (some sort of Rocky Mountain gerbil - REALLY cute; seriously, he looks like some kind of japanimation character or something), not to mention the Rocky Mountain red squirrels and chipmunks (the smallest I've ever seen!). And I haven't even told you about the scenery!