Episode 1.20: Yellowstone; the Serengeti of the West.

There are so many animals in Yellowstone!  I could have stayed in Lamar valley months.  This is where all the animals are at.  Wolves, bison, pronghorns, like everything.  The best thing you can do when you come here is to talk to people that seem like they know what they're doing.  They're usually pretty nice and will tell you where what is.  Some of these people spend the whole season following the pack of wolves and tracking their activities so they are a wealth of information.  There are a lot of cool people there.  When I was there it was raining off and on the whole time so I wasn't really able to take my camera and get into the back country and explore on my own.  I was okay with that since there was so much right in front of me all along the roads and sometimes in the roads.  I'm definitely going to need to revisit Yellowstone but that will be another adventure!

Episode 1.19 : Mountain Man Zig

Just north of Yellowstone lies the Beartooth Lodge.  It's several modestly sized cabins built by Zig and Mallie from lumber from their own land.  I think that is so cool!  I just kind of randomly heard about them through the internet and contacted them and they told me to come by for a day.  Then we made fast friends and I ended up staying for several days.

I got invite to come back next Summer and work building cabins.  Getting paid to learn new things is something that is very interesting to me.  Learning to go from trees to a log cabin would be awesome to learn.  Don't know what I'll be up to at that point in time but I'd love to spend the Summer building cabins.  I feel like this is how education should be.  We should get paid for it rather than paying for it.  Hmmm....

Episode 1.18: Bighorn National Park

This is one park that really surprised me.  I had never heard anything about it before but it was on the way so I figured I'd stop in and check it out on my way through.  I saw moose, elk, a badger, and many other furry animals.  Back home you just don't see so many animals and the wilderness is so thick that if you're close enough to see the animal then it's usually able to smell you and take off.  The one thing that disappointed me was that I didn't see any bighorn sheep.  That's alright though, since I did find a mountain lion kill. Definitely a sweet place to visit if you're ever in eastern Wyoming.

Episode 1.17: Raptors

Birds of prey/raptors are my favorite kinds of birds.  They're big and they're predators and their athleticism is just amazing.  Watching a hawk fly through dense woods after a squirrel is simply mind blowing.  John is an educator and shows these awesome birds off to thousands of kids.  For many of these kids, it's their first time seeing a raptor up close.  I was lucky enough to get a  private display of these amazing animals and share it with all of you!  John helps run the Black Hills Raptor Center.

Episode 1.16: Jungle of the West

I visited my friend John Halverson in Rapid City, SD.  He got me into Reptile Gardens for free and I did some filming.  This place has a huge collection of insane animals.  There were many snakes I had never seen before in real life.  I had read about many as a kid but to see them in real life was something really special.  

Episode 1.15: The Turkey Hunt (no turkeys harmed)

Hahaha oh gosh this was a fun trip.  It actually rained a lot and nobody shot any turkeys.  My favorite thing about the trip was figuring out the bolo.  I had never thrown one but I understood how they were supposed to work so after a little bit of practicing we got it figured out.  The next step was to test how well it worked.  It worked pretty well and was pretty easy to throw.  

In the end of the video I visited Mt. Rushmore which basically I don't anything about except some crazy guy carved it.  It had been raining and the way Washington's face looked really struck me.  He looked like he was crying and even the expression on his face was very serious.  To me he was looking over the land and saddened.  Obviously we have a lot of political and environmental issues here in the US.  He made me feel like I had to change the world.  I think world change should start in the US and would influence the rest of the world.  This is crazy but I'm going to do everything to change the world.  Otherwise, I'm just another drop in the ocean.