Two National Parks, One state park, and one National Monument.

Here is a more comprehensive video log of our trip to see Glacier National Park.

View from our campsite in Glacier National Park.

Wildlife Photos

I know there are some repeats here. But I am busy writing today. So I'm just going to put some of my favorite wildlife photos on the blog today. Taken in many places. If I can recall where I took them, I'll leave a notation with the photograph. All photos by me and copyright forever and ever and ever by James Robert Smith.

This is the fat raccoon who gave us Hell at Blue Spring State Park in Florida.

Bull bison in a dust wallow in Hayden Valley, Yellowstone.

Turkey vulture near the summit of North Carolina's Stone Mountain.

Bighorn ram, Glacier National Park.

Gopher tortoise on Egmont Key, Florida. His back is covered with sand because he was previously in his sandy burrow.

Hog-nosed black snake. On a trestle on the Virginia Creeper Bike Trail in southwest Virginia.

Velet ant (they are wingless wasps), back yard, Huntersville, NC.

Striped mullet at the opening of Silver Glen Springs, Florida.

Coyote/Red wolf hybrid in Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Four cottonmouth moccasins in Tate's Hell State Forest, Florida.

Gull, Gulf coast of Florida.

Not the greatest photo, I admit. But this black bear and I surprised one another as I was hiking a back country trail in Douthat State Par, Virginia.

Piebald white-tailed doe in Ocholockanee River State Park, Florida.

This gator was a bruiser. One of the biggest I've seen in the wild. At Wakulla Springs, Florida.

Gar, Manatee Springs, Florida.

Non-native African rhesus monkeys. Juveniles. I photographed them on the Silver River where there are hundreds of them living where they have adapted to the Florida landscape in the Silver River State Park, Florida.

Bull moose on the Snake River in the Grand Teton National Park.

Bull elk, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

Ptarmigan, Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado.

Pika, Rocky Mountain National Park, Longs Peak, Colorado.

Salamanders, Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, Virginia.

Elk herd, Great Smoky Mountains.

White-tail buck, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee side.

Black bear, Beartown State Park, West Virginia.

Wild turkey flock, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee side.

Bull elk, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC side.

White-tail does, Blackwater Falls State Park, WV.

Me. While hiking to find some of that wildlife in the NC mountains. Tuckered out!

Views!

Over the next couple of days I'll post some of the better photos we were able to take of the views both heading toward Glacier NP and while we were in the Park. It wasn't all choking ash and smoke. We had about three good days of clear skies with no smog. During that time I must have taken well over a thousand photos. I kept looking around and with every change in direction I found a new subject of mountain and horizon.

This was our campsite on Pray Lake. We were positioned on a pull-through site just a few steps from the rest room. The campground had a number of these nice rest rooms.

So, on our way...

I keep saying that there's something magical about the skies in Wyoming and Montana (when they're not packed with fire smoke).

A closeup view of the rock on the walls of Devils Tower.

I took this soon after we had set up camp. The smoke wasn't too bad at this point. And later a cold front pushed through, bringing rain and consistent winds that extinguished the local fires and knocked out the smoke clouds from Idaho and Washington.

This is an unusual waterfall that appears (and actually is) coming through a pierced rock wall. In earlier summer the water flow is sufficient that it also drops down over the top.

Early morning sight after the rains.

Rising Wolf Mountain just behind us.

And the view across Pray Lake as it's meant to be seen.

What a great view at the breakfast table!

I couldn't get enough photos of that view on the lake.

Early morning on Pray Lake.

Trailer Wash!

I'm going to be too busy working on fiction and washing the travel trailer today for me to blog. Sorry! So here are a few photos of our trip to Devils Tower.

One of our first good views of the Tower.

I took this one along the trail that leads you around the Tower.

These are prayer flags left by Native Americans for whom the Tower is sacred ground.

We also saw climbers scaling the Tower.

No Griz!

Well, we have returned home. Very long trip. Longest ever vacation. So much of it spent driving!

I now no longer have to imagine what it's like to witness a cloud of smoke that covers a huge portion of the North American continent. Between the historically enormous fires in Washington state (over 400 square miles) and the ones in Idaho, and the local fires in Montana we saw smoke clouds that spread over thousands and thousands of miles. Upon leaving, we actually drove for two days over three (enormous) western states trying to escape from the smoke. Only on the very eastern edge of South Dakota did we find ourselves free of most of it.

That said, we did have some days without smoke covering the skies. Three days in South Dakota and Wyoming, and roughly two and a half days in Glacier National Park (Montana). Then the fire smoke rolled in and obliterated the views. Most of the wildlife, also, seemed to fade from the landscape. Hiding? It sure seemed so.

We ended up never seeing a single grizzly bear, not one moose, and only two black bears (one of them a cub).

Details as I download the files and collect my thoughts.

Wyoming's Devil's Tower.