We got to check another National Park off our list. We decided to take the kids to Yellowstone for a few days since we were heading to Idaho for a family reunion anyway. We rented a cabin in Island Park and stayed there for three nights. Katy's family and grandma and grandpa Thompson came with us as well and it was fun to all be together.
We planned to go into Yellowstone two different days. The first day we went around the south loop and caught all the touristy places. First stop the Fountain Paint Pots in the Lower Geyser Basin.
Then my favorite part was the Grand Prismatic Spring. The colors were so beautiful and it looked like the steam coming off the water was blue.
There were a few other springs nearby that were pretty cool as well, but the Prismatic was definitely the winner.
It was lunch time to we drove to Old Faithful and just missed it, so we found a table in the woods and had lunch. Then we headed over and watched Old Faithful erupt. She faked us out a few times, but then eventually erupted. It think it was pretty anti-climatic, but it was still cool. We tried to go into one of the gift shops, but it was so crowded that we just left.
After our lunch break, we drove around to Yellowstone Lake and checked out the West Thumb Geyser Basin. That was pretty cool to see, and the lake was huge. About a month before we were there, the park had major flooding and many of the roads were damaged. While we were driving on the South end we had to wait a bit because a few spots were only one way because they were fixing the roads. I'm glad that happened before we got there and not while we were there.
Our last stop was at the Mud Volcano and the Sulphur Caldron, or the Dragon's breath. Both were very stinky and it reminded me of the Bog of Eternal Stench, from Labyrinth. The cool part was a cave at the top that had tons of steam coming out of it, and it sort of sounded like a Dragon. The kids were a little scared that there really was a Dragon in there. They loved it though.
After this, we were all pretty exhausted, so we made our way back to the cabin for the night and played games there.
The next day we went up and did the North side of the loop. We started by going all the way up to Mammoth Hot Springs. It was pretty amazing to see this huge hill with all these formations on it.
We found a nice spot on the grass in town and had lunch. There were a bunch of elk nearby and walking through town and it was cool to be so close to them. Then we went in to the visitor center and spent a little while learning about the area. It was pretty cool. After this we drove across along the North side of the park and made our way over to Tower Falls. After we hiked down to see them we enjoyed some ice cream at the giftshop and got a few souvenirs.
After our little snack, we headed to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We ended up hiking all the way down to the lower falls and being pretty much right on top of the falls themselves. It was incredible to be that close to the huge waterfall.
Our last stop was a lookout point where we got to see the whole waterfall and see where we hiked down to. It was all so magnificent.
After that, we went back to West Yellowstone, played at a park, and ordered pizza. It was a really fun trip with our cousins and grandparents.
No comments:
Post a Comment