After a restless sacrament meeting (the babies were both not too keen on the idea of sitting anywhere for more than a few minutes) we were back in the car and on our way to Yellowstone!
On our way into the park we passed through a little town called West Yellowstone. And spent a little more time there than we first planned going on a "Buffalo Hunt"! As we entered the small town we passed a painted Buffalo, and thought it was pretty similar to the cows we saw in Denver a few years ago. But we thought it was a just a coincidence, until we drove by the second one! So we took a little detour, looked up the info, and were on our way to finding the Buffalo Herd!It was fun to have the kids get out and take pictures by the Buffalo's and they thought it was fun because the 3 bigger ones remembered finding all the cows. (For those who are not aware of what I am talking about 2 years ago in Denver they had a herd of 100 cows. Each of which is designed and painted by local artists and then put on display for the public in different locations.) This herd had 25 Buffalo and 10 calves. We did not get them all because some of them were not in West Yellowstone and the babies were inside the locations so we did not get all of those either. But we did get the majority of the Herd!!
After our Buffalo Hunt, we made our way into Yellowstone. Our main goal was to see Old Faithful, but we stopped at many of the different interesting areas along the road to it. Including the Fountain Paint Pots and the Middle Geyser Basin. But the very first thin we saw in the park was a Bald Eagle. The kids were very excited about seeing that for "real" in the wild! Shortly after spotting the Eagle we saw a deer. He was standing along a river bed and watching two fisherman quite intently. Probably trying to figure out if it was safe to go down and get a drink. Then right down the road we saw a Buffalo. He was giving himself a dust bath! Our first actual stop was the Fountain Paint Pots, which our a bunch of different geothermic things including small geysers, stem vents, and mud holes. I think the kids will remember how smelly it was. But Quincy also thought the bubbling mud was just like "Marshmallow Marsh" in the cartoon Dragontales. It is amazing the many different colors that you see! And equally amazing that most of it is due to different types of bacterial mats giving off all the different colors.
From there we went down the road and stopped at the Middle Geyser Basin. There were two huge geysers here. They are not very active ones, but they do give off a lot of steam and heat! What is crazy is you get to walk right out over them, it was weird. And kind of scary, because there were no barriers between you and falling into the water. Luckily Lincoln and Mabry were in their strollers (the ones we had to buy because we left all the other ones at home!) and the other kids we kept close to our sides!
From there we kept driving and stopped at Old Faithful. We of course got there just after the eruption. So we had to kill about an hour before it was "supposed" to erupt again. That was not very hard to do, as we went to the Gift shop and tried to find the perfect shirt. Po (my Dad) gave all the kids $10 they were supposed to use to buy a shirt. And they wanted to make sure it was the perfect one. The boys decided they all needed to match, so Lincoln, Cutler and Rydman all chose the same shirt. The girls wanted to match, but there was not a shirt small enough for Mabry, so she got the same color shirt, but just a little bit different design on the front. Once that was decided we headed back out to see the eruption of Old Faithful. We got front row seats and then had to wait about 20 minutes for the actually eruption to occur. The kids were a little restless, but once the eruption actually happened, they forgot all about the wait they had just had to endure!
(Lincoln found two BeeGee's to play with so he did not think the wait was too difficult. As long as Mom would let him down to walk around!) After the "show" we took the kids back over to the store and got some ice cream to cool down with. Lets just say that Mabry loved her Push-Up!! She was such a mess by the time she was done! She had Push-Up everywhere, even down her back!
We still had to drive to Cowley (a three hour drive) to our next place we were going to stay. So after leaving Old Faithful we only stopped to see one more item- a giant waterfall! It was cool. But soon after that we had lost every child to the Sandman! Every one of them was asleep! And they missed out on seeing quite a bit of wildlife- we as adults saw more Buffalo, a Moose, a few deer and tons of different birds.
We had a ton of fun, but we were quite ready to be done for the day! Thankfully we got to Alan's moms house without too many problems!! But to our dismay, the children were not very keen on the idea of going back to sleep after their 3 hour nap in the car!!
3 comments:
So glad you added the pictures! The words are awesome, but seeing it is even more fun! I can not believe all of the stuff you are doing & seeing & experiencing! I know you are so glad you went even though gas is WAY expensive! We miss you guys, but know you are having a blast!
Stacy~~It looks like you guys are having a blast. However, remind me if I ever go on a trip with your family I call the front seat. I can't believe you have loaded one car with so much stuff and so many people. We are going up to Salt Lake this week. I think we will be going to the Pioneer Village at This is the Place. Have you heard anything about it? Thanks for adding the pictures. Lincoln is getting so big and he is so dang cute. Be safe and see you soon.
You guys are having so much fun. Experience is often the best teacher and those little guys are getting quite the lesson. Who said learning isn't fun?
love ya'
lorina
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