Family Friday: Yellowstone

Fridays will feature my family, and first up is our trip to Yellowstone. We've had a busy July so far, and 3 family reunion/vacations in one week alone. One that week was at Henry's Lake, 20 miles outside West Yellowstone. Since our kids had never been before, and I haven't since I was 12 (and I learned Hubby never had in the summer), we decided to take 2 days to explore the park. First day, within a few minutes, we found this bison just off the road. People were getting as close as 30-40 feet to take its picture. The kids loved it.


The first day we drove what is called the "lower loop," visiting most of the self-guided tours of the hot pots, mud pots, etc. The kids loved the rainbow colored rocks (mineral deposits) but quickly got tired of walking around. So, off to Old Faithful. We saw a good high eruption, but couldn't get a good picture of the best of it. The wind was blowing toward us, so all we saw was steam, and then the steam rained down on us. It was a refreshing mist on such a hot day.


This was on one of the self-guided tours, it's called Dragon's Mouth Spring. It does resemble a dragon's cave with smoke pouring out.


Toward the end of the lower loop, we drove past Yellowstone Lake. At this spot, a ranger explained this hole is on Fisherman's Point (I think). When the lake is lower, fishermen would walk out on the point to toss out their lines, then when they caught a fish, immediately turn around and cook the fish in the hole.


We saw plenty of wildlife, and several wildlife traffic jams. This guy had a line up behind him of ~25 vehicles. The next day, we got stuck behind a bison in a line of ~100 vehicles. 2 ranger trucks were trying to drive him off the road, but he kept heading back toward them as if to say, 'stop pushing me around, leave me alone.'


The second day, we left for the park before 7:00 am, hoping to catch sight of a bear, and lucked out. This little fellow was walking along the road eating flowers. He crossed the road right behind our truck, and ambled off.


Jessica took this picture at the Lower Falls.


We stopped at several spots to see the Upper and Lower Falls, and Tower Falls. Here's Dad and the kids at Lower Falls. We had a lot of fun, and I hope to be able to take the kids many more places to see the beauty and variety in the world.