here and there

sunday we went for a drive to a small cafe in a place called buffalo valley.
it's about 25 minutes north of us.

on the road off the campground, before the main highway
we came upon a large herd of bison.

they were everywhere.
we had to stop or we would have run right into them.
notice how big the bison on the left is compared to the van he is in front of

as they walked up to the side of the truck, they would grunt at us

then the babies would try to sound tough with their little grunts.

i originally thought these guys were under the tree for shade, but now i think that they were scratching themselves on the rough bark to get the last of their old matted fur off.  we have noticed they are looking alot better now that most of their old winter fur is gone and their new season's fur is almost grown in.

these little guys have horns growing in.  they also seem to have alot of scrapes out of their fur

if we had not been so hungry, i would have stayed for hours.


by tht time we got there, we had missed breakfast
but had a good lunch
there was no one else in the cafe so the chef came out and talked to us.
he even followed us out to the truck and kept talking.
while he and john were talking, i wandered around a took a few pictures.

the views from the cafe are amazing.

you look down into a valley with the buffalo river rambling thru it

the tetons are in the distance.

the cafe is part of a dude ranch up the road

across the street from the cafe are some of their corrals

there was a cowboy with a few horses

the chef told us they were going to be holding a roping event later in the day.

i could not get close enough to get a picture, but in a small meadow behind the trees was a mare with her colt. the colt was sleeping in the tall grass.

after talking with the chef for awhile, we drove up the road

which turned into a dirt road after a few miles.

it was beautiful in the back woods
no animals to be seen except for a couple of deers.

the dirt road eventually took us back to the main highway
so we headed back home via the inside park road
we took another side trip to a place called signal mountain.

it's across from jackson lake and

 has a view of the valley that is amazing.

it was the middle of the day and a bit hazy
but the pictures give a good idea of how high we were and

what the valley looks like.

that little road trip from here to there and back again ended up being

a 6 hour drive.