"Why aren't we flying? Because getting there is half the fun. You know that."

We saw signs (and followed them. I was as Bear Aware as one person can be).

We saw a bunch of tracks (right by where the four elk were at).

No, the next sentence isn't "We saw like, 37 bears, two were fighting, 4 were fishing and there were a bunch of babies". The next sentence is we didn't see one bear in over (roughly) 14 hours spent in Yellowstone over two days. I was pretty bummed. It got to the point where any vaguely bear-shaped rock, tree, buffalo etc. was getting me excited.

This is as close as we got to seeing a bear at Yellowstone:
And he's wearing a tie with no pants...

As disappointing as that was the rest of the day was very cool, if not reeeealllly long. I was finally over driving today during the last two hours of the drive. We went 490.2mi today. I'm glad we started as early as we did, my estimate for getting to Sun Valley was 10pm. We pulled in at 10:15. I have to say, my time estimation skills have proved to be pretty accurate

This was by the Fountain Paintpots. These pools looked really cool but the more intense the color, the more they smelled like sulfur. At times, if the wind picked up some of the steam, it was brutal.

I can't speak for Alie but I am pumped to not have to A)pack the suitcases up for three days, B)not wake up with an alarm tomorrow and C)not drive more than 100mi in a day until Sunday. The Google Maps for the next few days will not be mind blowing, but I'll link them anyway. We have one activity planned tomorrow and the rehearsal dinner at night.

Day 7: Sun Valley, ID

Alie stole a lot of my picture thunder for today, so I'll post yet another of the type of thing I find cool (think Geographic Center of the US cool...)

Pretty awesome huh?

One other closing thought...Even though we aren't trekking the West anymore, we are both still going to post updates and pictures for the rest of the trip (and, again, I am at some point going to put all of our pictures online somewhere. Also, scans of some of the better film close up pictures.)

Highlight of the Day: This one is tough. From one perspective, the best thing about today is that we are pretty much done with the major driving. Also, the Tetons were beautiful and you could get close to them. I just couldn't get over the four elk (3 male, 1 female) I took a bunch of pictures with the film camera w/telephoto lens and got some great pictures.