Yellowstone

This last weekend, we took a mini vacation into Yellowstone National Park. It had been years since I had been there and Christian couldn't remember the last time he had been there. Early in the summer, we had thought it would be a fun trip to take with the boys and when we won a night stay in West Yellowstone, it was a go! We left Friday morning around ten, ate lunch in the Park, and then drove to Old Faithful. We made a stop at Fishing Bridge, but Old Faithful was our major stop of the day. We got there just about 20 minutes before they predicted it was to go off again, so we had just enough time to use the bathroom and look around the really nice visitor's center. We watched it erupt and then decided to walk around the rest of the geothermal spots. It was fun to see all the different and interesting spots that are around there. After our walk, we grabbed some ice cream and then watched Old Faithful erupt one more time before we left. We drove to West Yellowstone that night where we ate some not so good dinner, walked around the town a bit and then swam off some energy in the pool. 

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast and then went across the street from our hotel to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. They had lots of information about bears and even had some live ones to look at. They also had 7 wolves and a bunch of predatory birds. After there, we walked around the shops some more, grabbed some treats for the ride home, got gas and had some lunch and played at the park before we took off. We decided to take a different rout home and took the Norris rout. We stopped and saw the Artists Paintpots, Upper and Lower Falls which were really cool and kind of made me realize that I might have a fear of heights along with the Sulphur Caldron, which smelled like stinky eggs the boys said and the Mud Volcano. It was a great trip! It was fun to get out and see such a beautiful and interesting place that is so close to us! It's crazy that we haven't visited there more!

The boys watching a guy fly fish while we were eating lunch.

Our picnic in the park

Me and the boys in front of the lake at lunch.

Travis watching Old Faithful from the best seat around.

Our one family picture from our trip. This was taken on our walk around Old Faithful.

The boys enjoying some ice cream.

Landon LOVED the ice cream and we got a few chuckles out of people as they walked by and saw his cute little ice cream covered face.

One of two buffalo we saw the first day. The boys were getting really tired of looking for animals because we weren't seeing any.

Swimming!

One of the grizzlies at the Discovery Center.

Carson thought the bear hide was really cool.

The only wolf that wasn't laying totally flat sleeping while we were there.

The boys comparing their feet to the size of the bears.

The boys checking out the inside of a teepee.

Outside the Discovery Center.

A picture from the Lowe Falls.

The Lower Falls.

Carson and Travis in front of the Upper Falls. 

We finally saw quite a bit of wildlife on our way home Saturday. We saw TONS of buffalo, a cow elk and a baby, a coyote and some sort of rock chuck or something like that.

Sulphur Caldron

I can't think of the full name of this but it had Dragon in it because it sounded like what a dragon would sound like, I guess. The boys really liked it, but Travis was a little concerned that there was really a dragon in there!