First Trip to Yellowstone 2012

 

 

 

Part of Scott's travels for his job take him through Yellowstone National Park. To save money, Scott's employer purchased him an annual pass. On two of Scott's days off, we took trips to tour the park before Ashlynn started school.  On the first trip, we had to go through the Beartooth Highway- a beautiful, windy, 2-lane road getting up to almost 11,000 ft. I had no idea it was such a destination. The overlooks were breathtaking.

 

Once we reached the park entrance, we entered though the NE entrance and began eagerly looking for wildlife. Most of the area between the NE entrance and the Grand Loop is Lamar Valley. If Ivremember correctly, Lamar Valley is where the animals spend their summer? Either way, it is known for its high concentration of grizzlies, elk, bison, wolves, etc. Its reputation held true, at least partly, and we saw our first (and only) herd of bison! Ashlynn about came unglued when she saw them.

 

The next big adventure in Yellowstone was the Yellowstone Grand Canyon. The signs said this is a fairly new part of the park, appearing to only be 14,000 years old. No matter how old it is, the beauty is astounding. The Yellowstone River flows through the canyon, creating multiple waterfalls. Some of the different colors on the canyon walls are caused iron and other minerals. Ashlynn was way more excited by all of the different colors. Daniel really only seemed to care about seeing "WATERFALL!!" He would run around, either entertaining or irritating most of the people there. On our way to the next place, we came to a stretching halt. In Yellowstone, if there are a whole bunch of people pulled off to the side of the road, getting out, holding cameras and binoculars, it is safe to say there is something worthy of seeing. We got out, and carefully made our way to where the people were gather. We quickly saw they were looking at this.

To get to the see the elk safely, Daniel had to be carried. Unfortunately, he didn't want to be carried any way except on Momma's shoulders. Momma gained a new appreciation for when Daddy carries Daniel like that for what must feel like ages.  So on our way back to our car, Scott quickly and bravely took this picture to document how we had had to travel so that neither of the kids ended up mowed over.

The next stop were the mud caldrons. Both kids were fascinated by the bubbling, muddy waters. Daniel would run up to the next one and point! Ashlynn thought they smelled just awful. I can't saw as I blame her. The infamous sulphur smell permeated this stop.

Another stop featured the Dragon's Mouth.  The sign said the name came from the original explorers who thought the sound the escaping steam made was similar to that of a dragon. It did have a roaring sound to it, so I can understand why it got the name it did. It was rather fun to watch which we did for a bit.



We pushed on and our next major stop was Old Faithful! The last time Daniel had scene it he was only 6 weeks old. This time was much more memorable for him. We had tried to look up the schedule on line, but had had no luck.

As we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed there were a lot of people milling about Old Faithful. We figured either it had just gone off or was about to go off. We were hoping it was the later, so we took off running!  We got there in plenty of time to find a spot and wait for the big show. As usual, Old Faithful did not disappoint.


Daniel kept pointing to it and saying "Whoa!" He was rather impressed. Whenever Ashlynn would look away, he would point and say, "Look, Ashlynn! It goes up!" Once it had finally slowed, we started heading back to the car. It had been a long day and the kids started to let us know it about this point. There were a couple of more very pretty places to see before getting to the park exit, so we pushed on.

From Old Faithful we continued on to other sites such as the Grand Prismatic Spring, Fountain Paint Pot, and Firehole Bridge. Here are a few cool pictures from those:

  

We finally left the park around 9:00pm and then did some shopping around West Yellowstone. Since it was so late, we got the kids ready for bed, at some food that had been chilling in the cooler all day, then hit the road to come back home. We got home a little after midnight, put the sleeping into thei beds, then fells asleep ourselves. We all slept very well from our big day.