As we drove through Yellowstone yesterday on our way back from visiting another geyser basin (there are SO MANY here in Yellowstone!) we saw several cars on the side of the road and people out of their cars all looking in one direction.  That’s a sign that there’s an animal nearby.  Most of the time it’s one or more bison, sometimes elk and once an eagle in a tree (too far away for our camera to get a good shot).  But, FINALLY today it was a grizzly and her cub.  They were about 2 football fields away, behind a river and in an area with lots of felled trees, so we had trouble seeing them through the trees but we pulled over immediately and went to the crowd and started looking.  Jeff got a few good pictures which are below.

Of course, everybody else wanted to know what was going on too, and pretty soon the road was totally clogged with cars.  Lots of people didn’t try to pull over, they just stopped in the road and asked what we saw and tried to see it too.  Or, they would pull partway out of the road but not enough so cars could get past.  Shortly some rangers came along with bullhorns and started telling people to get out of the road or move along!  Luckily we got there early enough to get off the road and not be in anyone’s way.

We were there about 20 minutes, hoping the bears would come out into more open land, and telling newcomers where to look to see them.  It was fun to see kids when they finally got a glimpse of the bears!  Several people with really professional looking camera gear went down into the marsh next to the road to get closer.  They felt pretty safe because the river was between us and them and still didn’t get anywhere near the 100 yards the rangers say to keep between people and bears.  They probably got some really good photos!  We are satisfied with the ones we got!