I'm sitting here in Raleigh, awaiting the "significant" snowfall (always a relative term here) predicted for central North Carolina this afternoon. So far, nothing but a smidgen of rain. Last night I couldn't sleep in anticipation. Just like the night before Santa Claus. Waaaaaah! Santa didn't bring me anything.
I decided to go where there'd definitely be snow. So I visited the daily online journal of a group of N.C. teachers visiting Yellowstone National Park this week under the guidance of my good, kind and talented friend and colleague Mike Dunn. He is a tremendous environmental educator and photographer. The group is journaling and uploading their words and photos on the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences' Web site. Click
here to follow along.
"We carefully passed a large herd of bison in Hayden Valley. It's much harder to pass a herd when they are traveling in the same direction as your vehicle. Tamarak, our snow coach driver, had to drive very slowly so the bison wouldn't run too much and use the energy they need to survive until spring."
It's not as good as snow in my own yard, but it'll do for now. The color of envy is .... white?
Update: It just started snowing!
Note: Wanted to include Mike's feedback here, in addition to the comments section:Thanks for making people aware of our journey. The daily journals are written (with some slight editing by us) by teams of teachers in the workshop on a rotating basis. And the bison photo was actually taken by my able-bodied colead, Melissa - out the back of our snow coach. We will be posting more of our photos to the Museum web site in the next few days. The snow was awesome, and the temps got down to -25 degrees F!Mike
Back in the winter, when I was lamenting our lack of snow, I paid a vicarious visit to Yellowstone National Park via the e-reporting of a group of North Carolina educators. A similar group, again led by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, just returned from a spring trip to Yellowstone. As in January, the teachers and leaders kept an online journal and posted photographs, including this one of an elk and calf.* You can read the group's stories and view more photographs here.
