Story

Alpaca’s are fascinatingly ugly animals.With strange clumps of fur, jutting teeth, and eyes that watch you warily at all times; the alpaca is a shifty animal at best. I feel like I must constantly watch out for spit whenever I get near these animals. I have always felt something sinister about them and I think it is because of their teeth. A face only a mother could love. Every time I look at a llama or alpaca I cringe. Yet for some reason I feel totally fascinated by them. I want to go in closer for a better look but my whole body screams stay back, it bites! ...

This weekend we’re off to Fort Ord for the Central Coast Circuit race. There’s no junior category, but Gabe is hopeful that this will be a good race to try out riding with the Elite 5 men. Simon, Joe, and a turkey are there to welcome Gabe to the race. There are a few fellow SJBC riders joining Gabe, though unfortunately his new kit didn’t make it in time for the race. Here are a few shots from around the course. Gabe is doing very well staying at the front along with Tim. ...

Sorry for the lack of posts… again. Life is hectic right now as my senior year brings me closer and closer to IB Exams. I have been working hard to catch up on my schooling after being gone for a week in Yellowstone. However I got away from the hustle and bustle with some friends and took a road trip down to Cal Poly to see my brother. We went to the zoo and just hung out. More info on that will be coming over the next couple of days. I am hoping I will soon be back on track with posting. So here is a photo to tide you over, a funny look into the (inappropriate) life of Meerkats. (notice the guy just kind of chilling in the back ground watching).

Charlotte and Gabe headed out to the central valley for the Snelling road race, while Monica and I were in Yellowstone. Sounds like it was a cold, but dry day to ride some beautiful roads with the other juniors. They started hammering right away, and Gabe was happy with his 9th place finish.

This year Monica and I are headed back to [Yellowstone] (https://www.nps.gov/yell) to enjoy the awesome wildlife and scenery again. I didn’t collect a lot of photos this year, as Monica and I shared the large lenses and she posted a lot of her work on her blog. You can read her entries for day 1, 2, 3456. I’ve put a few of my favorite photos here for you to enjoy. Unfortunately the wildlife was very sparse this year, but we did manage to get some great fox photos. We did have a load of fun, right up to the point I got a bad fever and cough for the last few days. It was a treat to meet Chris Miller and his wife for dinner and talk about genealogy and life in Montana. ...

Today was our last day in Yellowstone and I can’t lie, it was pretty disappointing. The entire park was incredibly vacant of all life. There were so little animals that we saw almost nothing. This includes wolves. For the second year I am walking away from Yellowstone without a photo of a wolf. It is disappointing but I can not forget what a wonderful experience I have been blessed with. I got to see a fox, coyotes, eagles, buffalo, big horn sheep, and many other things. I have had a wonderful time but I really want to see the wolves. ...

Today the wildlife activity in the park seemed to pick up a lot. We saw all sorts of animals. We started out with a small coyote who crossed the road in front of us only to soon disappear into the snow. We also saw some more coyotes later in the day. One of which had found what appeared to be a large elk bone and was chewing on it for quite some time. ...

Outside our hotel is a group of deer that seem to hang around at all times. This morning they were especially cute; they were all huddled up next to a house trying to stay warm. It is a nice thing to wake up and have wildlife basically sitting on your doorstep. There was a lot less wind and bad weather today and even some really nice sun that greeted us frequently throughout the day. The remnants of yesterday still remained and the snow plows and blowers were out in full force trying to clear away all the snow off the roads. ...

Today was a snow storm. There was so much snow and wind that it felt like a snow hurricane. At certain times we couldn’t even see the road. This also meant that we didn’t see that much wildlife. Still no sightings of wolves but we saw plenty of other animals. There were a lot of buffaloes hanging out in the snow, hunkering down for the storm. We also had a couple of coyotes run across the road in front of us. ...

Today was the first day of our real expedition. We headed out in sub-zero temperature in search of the wildlife and beauty that Yellowstone has to offer. We started out early and headed into the park. We got to see some more elk at Mammoth Hot Springs, one of which was nursing. Then we started out on our long days journey to Lamar Valley. We saw all sorts of animals including coyotes, bison, elk, bald eagles, and big horns. However most of them were to far away to get actually decent photos of them. The big horns however decided to cooperate with us and get close enough to photo graph as they ate their lunch. ...