This had to be the event of the day! We stopped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park on Highway 94. It's a nice place to stop, easy to get to, not too crowded, and very uplifting to see. Signs abound advising you to not mess with buffalo, should you see any in the park! And, lo and behold, there was a buffalo standing in the shade of a tree by the Visitor's Center! Then he moved out and along the fence, browsing the trimmed grass as he went. Knocked me out! Paid no attention to the respectful attention from all of us. Many other cameras were also deployed. You can see a bit of the muted pastel beauty of the Badlands behind him.
It was interesting to see the contrast between his slender hind legs and his huge hairy hump! The light wasn't that great and his hair and eyes are so dark, that it was difficult to get all the detail I wanted. Also, he didn't do much but keep his head down munching grass, This did not show him to his best advantage, portrait-wise.
Speaking of the home where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play, today again we passed a great deal of highway carnage, many deer and a couple of pronghorn antelope, crushed and mangled on the Interstate. I guess trucks don't swerve for carcasses and may not even see them in the dark. This is the time of year when mating takes place and many animals lose a contest with a vehicle. But for animal lovers, this is a sad and sorry sight. There was too much of it on this whole trip.
I'm out of poems, so it will be haiku night:
sloping prairie
a herd of white cattle
in late autumn light
or
cottonwoods drest in Indian Yellow along the Yellowstone
This shows the perils fo trying to write haiku for immediate consumption. Go forth and write some better ones. I hope you'll have a day as beautiful as this one was.to write in. And I've always wanted to write "dressed" like that. I know it's silly.
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