An interesting night....

It's much drier here in North Dakota than earlier in the trip so we left the rain fly off the tent to do some star gazing. As the stars were coming out and we were looking for shooting stars we heard some odd noises. Sam asked if it was rattle snakes. The noises got louder. It's hard to describe- a rattling wheezy grunting. Bison! On the move and coming in our direction! They wandered through and came within feet of us. Jim was ready with the bear spray though we imagine it wouldn't do much more than make the bison mad and a mad bison is the last thing you want in camp. A happy bison is not much better. They are noisy and intimidating, especially in the dark. We sat there for a long time looking at the stars and listening to the bison all around us. The stars were beautiful, the bison were scary. Mom was scared, Dad was scared, Sam was so scared her teeth were chattered. Ali was fast asleep! That's much too close! Eventually most of them moved along. We heard a Ranger on a horse on the road driving them away. A few stragglers stayed behind and kept Jim up most of the night. They are not malicious, but one wrong step and we would be squashed. That's the closest we need to get to a bison! They are big, noisy and they smell like a barnyard!