Vacation!

Well, we're headed out for vacation. Fortunately we don't have to board the cats this year because Andy is staying home to take care of them. Huzzah!

Just a few photos more here from our trip last summer to Yellowstone. It occurred to me as I stood on a high bluff above Hayden Valley looking down on the herds of bison that this is as close as a human can get to seeing Pleistocene North America. Most of our megafauna are extinct now, and the day is on the horizon when they'll all be gone, but for now you can get a glimmer of what it was once like.

Be sure to click on the panorama shot, as it displays the valley and just a part of the massive herds of American bison who live there today.

There I was, at last. Looking down on Hayden Valley, seeing the huge herds of bison living pretty much as they have for hundreds of thousands of years.

The rut hadn't quite started, but this bull was already making it plain that this cow was on his turf.

This bull was dusting up in a dry wallow.