I See Buh-hu-low!!

In a truly iconic Yellowstone moment we found ourselves surrounded by a heard of 93 buffalo. Okay, if you know us you know we may not have just "found ourselves surrounded."  We may have slightly chased the moment, but we had no idea how cool it would turn out to be. 

After doing a bit of animal watching on the ridge in Hayden Valley, we noticed a slight pile up of cars taking place about 1/2 mile down the road.  If any of you have been to Yellowstone, a slight pile up of cars usually means one thing - wildlife!!  We loaded into the "Horizon" (which surprisingly hadn't tipped over given it's current position on the side of the road), and headed into the chaos.  As soon as we got down the road we realized that everyone  was stopping to look at a heard of buffalo grazing beside the road.  Our kids were so excited.  We had seen one maybe two buffalo at a time, but never this many.  

On a side note, I've got to say how quickly you become a wildlife snob once in Yellowstone.  Very quickly the yelling turns from "LOOK!" to "oh, it's only one buffalo" or "it's just a female elk heard; no antlers".  Just a buffalo or female elk heard??!!  Two weeks ago, we all would have peed our pants in excitement over a buffalo or female elk.  Sigh...

Back to the story.  In a matter of minutes the heard decided to cross the road - RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!!  C grabbed the binoculars and started yelling "I see buh-hu-low.  Buh-hu-low."  Miss M thought we were all going to die.  Which proves we had surprisingly and sufficiently done our job of scaring her enough to stay away from any wildlife she might see.  Hubby and T climbed the motorhome to get a better look.  It was so cool.  

All in all we were stuck for about an hour while we watched momma bison walking their young across the road, males doing a little jiving to prove their manlyhood, and the pile-up of cars stretch for nearly a mile.  We were so lucky to be in the front of this sighting.  Finally Mr. Ranger showed up to shoo the bison across the street and clear up traffic and we headed back to the campsite with quite a story to tell.