OPINION: Bear, bear, bear, bear

Last week, I really focused on the negatives of my time in Yellowstone. And while, in my defense, pneumonia is a pretty big negative, I’d also like to take some time to look at the great parts of the trip.

The trip began on Saturday, Aug. 16. I met up with my family in the Sioux Falls Regional Airport parking lot, where we emptied my vehicle and left it there for the week.

We drove west from there, making it to Keystone, South Dakota, by the afternoon. Staying in the outskirts of town, we could see Lincoln’s side profile on Mount Rushmore from our hotel.

We got dinner and explored the town, waiting until evening to head to Mount Rushmore. There, we watched the evening lighting ceremony, afterward hiking around the base in the dark.

The next day, we continued our trek west, briefly stopping at Jewel Cave National Monument. I survived our drive through the Bighorn Mountains without any car sickness issues, though maybe that was because my body was focused on other problems.

We stayed the night at Pahaska Tepee, which, to both my mother’s and my surprise, was not actually a tepee. This is the last place to stay before you hit Yellowstone’s east entrance. Early Monday morning, we got our stuff together and headed into Yellowstone with the plan to climb the Elephant Back Mountain Trail.

The 3.5-mile, “moderately strenuous” hike was certainly a challenge for me, but I made it through. We started early enough that we didn’t encounter any other hikers until the final five minutes as we headed to our car. The rest of the day we slowly made our way north.

We traveled to our next stop for the night, Gardiner, Montana, located outside the north entrance to Yellowstone. Along the way we saw plenty of bison and stopped to view some cool geothermal features.

Tuesday morning as we left Gardiner, we passed an elk munching on some grass in someone’s front lawn. I think I’m happy with our squirrels and possible white-tail deer here.

We got to Old Faithful just in time, with the geyser going off maybe 10 minutes after we arrived. We hiked another five miles or so, seeing other geysers and hot springs. However, by the end of that hike, I knew something was wrong with me. My family did our next hike without me while I tried to relax my breathing in the car.

That night we arrived at Canyon Lodge, our home for the next few nights. We spent the first half of Wednesday at the Lake Clinic, getting me treatment and ensuring I survived the rest of our trip. That night, we sat in our lawn chairs watching for animals in Hayden Valley. We didn’t see anything new (except for an otter!), but enjoyed the evening anyway.

The entire time, we’ve been waiting and hoping to see a bear. Halfway through our trip, we’d had no luck yet. However, my nosy family saw another car pulled over near a wooded area. In the hopes of seeing a new animal, we joined them, and boy were we glad to have done that. As we pulled over, a (possibly teenage?) black bear ran across the road. We did it! After days of silently chanting “bear, bear, bear, bear” we’d seen our bear.

On Thursday we took it easy, checking out some waterfalls and other natural features at pullouts. My dad and sister would enjoy more of the hikes that went with them, while my mom stuck with me and just enjoyed the view. That night we had a boat tour scheduled for Yellowstone Lake. Unfortunately I got really sick at that point, so my mom stayed back with me while my dad and sister gave us all the details when they got back.

We headed back east on Friday, stopping in Deadwood for the night. That kind of turned out to be a bust, as they had a big music/car event happening that resulted in many of the museums and cool historical places I wanted to go being closed. We did go on a mediocre ghost tour at the end of the night, but the poor lady was flustered with all the extra happenings in town.

Saturday we continued on, touring the Badlands and seeing plenty of prairie dogs. Known as a place where many fossils have been found, the information center there had a really cool research station where paleontologists were busy dusting and cleaning off recently-found fossils. The nerd that I am, I could have spent hours watching them work. Instead, we headed back on the road, finding plenty more of my favorite rodents along the way.

That was basically the end of our vacation, with Sunday simply being a travel day to get home. I’m not going to lie, being sick during this all sucked. I felt like I was not only ruining my experience, but my family’s as well. However, in the end, we still got to spend time together and found that illusive bear.