Did that fox really just jump onto the hood of my car?  Yep, sure enough.

 

 

I’d spotted a young-looking red fox just outside of Yellowstone’s northeast entrance gate as I returned home to Silver Gate one morning in early November, and, when I stopped at a pullout to take some photos, the fox trotted right up to me.  Silver Gate foxes tend to be pretty comfortable around people, but this was ridiculous.  I honked my horn and clapped – no impact.  Not an encouraging sign for the young fox’s long-term survival prospects.

 

 

November is an unusual month in Yellowstone.  The interior of the park is closed, so the only open road is the one that runs from Gardiner to Silver Gate.  The weather is unpredictable – sometimes mild, other times full-on arctic blast.  And wildlife activity is often pretty slow, with many of the animals beginning to hunker down for the winter.

Which all means that the park is as empty as it gets.  On some mornings this November I drove from Silver Gate to Lamar Valley without seeing another car.  It can be magical to have the park to yourself like that, and I made a point of appreciating the peace and tranquility.  Soon enough trucks hauling snowmobiles to Cooke City would be racing back and forth like angry hornets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the afternoon of November 11th I started seeing some online chatter about the possibility of the Northern Lights making an appearance that night.  Marie and I had been lucky enough to catch an amazing Northern Lights display over Yellowstone’s Blacktail Plateau in May of last year, and since then I’d been hoping for a chance to get photos of the aurora over our house.  I figured the odds of actually seeing the Northern Lights that night were probably low, but I set an alarm anyway to remind me to check the sky.

Turns out I didn’t need a reminder.  It gets dark early in Silver Gate in November, and as I was making dinner around 6pm I noticed an eerie red glow seeping through the kitchen window.  “Check out the sky!” I yelled to Marie, who began taking iPhone photos from our bedroom.  Meanwhile I scrambled to put on warm clothes, gather up my camera and tripod, and stumble through the darkness to find a spot in our yard with a good view of our house and the sky, which had been transformed into a sea of scarlet radiance, dazzling even to the naked eye.

 

 

The colors changed quickly, from deep red to fiery pink and purple streaked with shimmering waves of pale green.  The show went on for over an hour before losing intensity.  Apparently the aurora that night was so strong it reached all the way to Florida.

 

 

Meteorologists were predicting the possibility of a repeat the next night, so I drove into Yellowstone in case there was another show.  No color appeared, unfortunately, and I returned home.  Later that night I walked out onto our deck to check the sky.  Alone in the pitch black, unable to see anything around me, I suddenly felt a presence of some kind (maybe I’d picked up a soft, nearly-imperceptible sound?).  When I switched on my phone’s flashlight I was surprised to discovered a red fox standing right in front of me.  The fox tilted its head and locked eyes curiously, totally unfazed.  Was this the same overly-habituated fox that had hopped on my car?

 

 

For Thanksgiving we were lucky to gather with a great crew in Bozeman.  My sister Ann and her husband Dan drove up from Denver to see their daughter Kate, and the three of them joined me, Marie, and Marie’s kids Aidan and Audrey for a big feast on Thanksgiving afternoon, followed the next day by a round of bowling at The Bozeman Bowl.  It was a perfect way to wrap up the month.