On day one of our trip to Yellowstone National Park, a few miles from the entrance, we were stopped behind brake lights and a line of traffic. Thinking that there was a fender bender ahead, we took our time as traffic started to move. We soon realized what was slowing everyone down. There, at the side of the road, was a large buffalo, eating his breakfast. Behind him, a stream, rushing over the rocks and behind that, a mountain. Not exactly purple mountain’s majesty, but most certainly, America the beautiful. I reached for my phone/camera to take a picture. It would have been the perfect photograph, but HE didn’t stop. Why? He said something about reading signs and instructions not to stop on roadways in the park. After all these years he picks NOW to follow the rules? I couldn’t get the thought of that perfect photograph out of my mind all day. It really was the one that got away, at least in my mind. On day two of our stay, I was ready. Extracting a promise that HE would break the rules just this once and stop, I readied my camera and sent up a silent prayer that Mr. Buffalo was a creature of habit, at least for breakfast. Sure enough, we saw brake lights ahead, close to the same spot. HE slowed down. I opened the window of the small rental car . HE stepped on the brakes. Old Mr. Buffalo stopped chewing. I raised the camera. The buffalo raised his head, looked me straight in the eye, snorted, and started coming toward my open window. I simultaneously rolled up the window and fumbled with the camera, managing to snap one picture. HE stepped on the gas, not wanting our rental car to have a dent from being head-butted by a beast that was every bit as large as the car itself. Excited that I had at least one photo, I checked my camera. Apparently, in all the excitement, I hit the button that switched it to selfie mode, and instead of a buffalo in front of a stream in front of a mountain, I got me. Not only was it me, it was a very unflattering me with mouth open and a look of half-surprise/half-fright on my face. With my mouth open as wide as it was, I had a double chin, a coffee splotch on my shirt, and my hair was wind-blown, but not in a good way. Needless to say, I am not sharing that picture, and it has been deleted along with the rest of the double chinned photographs of me, of which there have been many. Luckily, I do have a buffalo photograph to share, though. We stopped at a local pub that evening called “The Buffalo”, named for a large, stuffed, moth-eaten creature who inhabits the bar. I ate a taco salad made with….what else but buffalo meat? It was appropriate. And delicious.
They never listen!
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Who? The buffalo or the husbands? 😉
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Your experience with hubby driving is a duplicate to mine slowing for me to see something – and a blink of an eye and we’re past it and it’s history – and his explanation is “how slow did you expect me to go?” Yep, hubbies are great, but not as drivers when there is something to slow down to see! Good luck in future travels.
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Thanks!
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I’ve never mastered the art of the selfie – all photos of me accidental or on purpose- get promptly deleted 😂 Years ago on a trip to Inuvik, me driving – my hubby made me stop for a picture of a two year old grizzly (easily three hundred pounds) that had pulled down a large road sign and was trying to flip it over while standing on it. Hubby promptly gets out of the car and starts lurking ever closer, I kept the car in gear with my foot on the brake and gave some thought to whether or not I would try to save his sorry ass should the cub decide to shred him for dinner. 🙄He got his picture – got back in the car and we drive on. I did tell him tho – that I had decided that should the grizzly have attacked him I would have likely left him there 😄
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Hahaha! I would have left him, too!
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