Day 2 - Saturday - Sandpoint and National Bison Range

Today’s destination is to make it to Butte, Montana. Normal people would take a straight-shot on I-90…but we are not normal. We took the scenic route up through Sandpoint, Idaho. 

 We stopped in Sandpoint for Breakfast, it was a cute, clean town. The people were very friendly and the pictures I took of the butterfly wall seemed to  be a good representation of how I felt about the town.

 It’s definitely a town that relys on tourism. During the summer people are attracted to the large lake for water skiing and fishing.

We took this scenic route because it is near a National Bison Range. It’s a 20 mile scenic drive through Bison country….."well aren’t you on your way to Yellowstone?" one might ask. Yes..but I’ve never seen a Bison in a natural type setting, and let’s just make sure that I get to.

 The scenic drive took us through meadows and up and over mini-mountains.

 It was beautiful to see the valleys surrounded by the mountain ranges. The views were worth the $5 we paid to drive through the range.

Now onto the Bison.....we didn't see as many as I had expected, perhaps it was because we arrived in the afternoon and it was hot.

These two were lying in Bison-Beds right by the road (there was a fence between us.) Bison-Beds were spotted all throughout our journey, and besides poop, one of the primary indications that Bison frequent the area. They are oval shaped indentations of dirt that the bison have fluffed with their hoof and rolled around in.

 We stopped to explore a little hiking trail and we were stopped by this little beggar on the way back.

Around a few more corners we had more spectacular views

Then we came across a pack of Mule Deer, all with drool-worthy racks.

This is were we learned that we love our camera lens for landscape, but we are ready to invest in a better lens (and tripod!) for wildlife.

We passed by a herd of Pronghorns. We saw a lot of these herds roaming the fields of Montana as we were driving along our main route.

We got a close encounter while this guy walked right along the gravel road, eating the untouched vegetation.

And yet a slightly camouflaged Pronghorn, which I just thought made a good picture.

The last encounter we had was with a snorting White-Tailed Deer.

 His lady friend was nearby, it was possible that he was snorting and grunting to warn her of the danger that we presented. 

As you can see, he was drool-worthy as well.