Our Yellowstone trip part 4

Wednesday our first stop was to see the Lower Falls from Artist Point. On our way we spotted a few elk. The view at the point was amazing. I was hoping to get there early enough to get pictures with a misty rainbow, but I only got one before it disappeared. Can you see it?

 Sidenote: I had Afton pick out a new hat for our trip. This is what she picked. "I Heart TMNT." She hasn't even seen it. And the heart is a pizza. With rhinestones on it. That girl...

 If you look really closely, you can see people standing just to the right of the falls. That hike is called Brink of the Falls. We did that a little bit later. Thirty-seven THOUSAND gallons of water go over the edge every second!

 This is the view looking down the canyon the other way.

We stopped really quickly for me to jump out of the car and take a few pictures at another point on the drive.

 I feel like the pictures from Dan's phone captured the colors a lot better.

So as I mentioned before, we did the Brink of the Lower Falls hike, which was just a bunch of switchbacks down to the edge.

 We ate lunch by our car for some reason. I can't remember why. We saw a lot of bison in a valley on the way.

We then did the Natural Bridge hike, which was 3 miles roundtrip.

 Apparently they used to drive a stagecoach over the top somehow.

We drove by Yellowstone Lake and then headed back to the cabin for lasagna. The kids played in the hot tub a little bit and then we had a fire and 'smores.

 Hunter, Sam, Luke, and Matt. Hunter and Luke are twins about a year and a half older than Sam.

 Hunter tried roasting a starburst.

 Grandpa Durst telling the kids a story.

Our Yellowstone trip part 3

We headed out of Island Park, Idaho bright and semi-early to get into Yellowstone. After entering the park we saw a moose, our first of many bison, mule deer, squirrels and chipmunks. The ranger had given Sam and Afton a sheet with pictures of all the park's animals on it and for each one you saw, you got ten points, so the kids (especially Sam) went crazy trying to see everything they could (and possibly fibbing a little) in order to get the most points. It was a blessing and a curse throughout our visit to the park. Sam would see a lot more than Afton and Afton would constantly say, "But I can't see it!"

Sam counted up his points over and over and over again.

Anyhow, our first official stop was the Midway Geyser Basin, home of the Grand Prismatic Geyser. Dan took the kids to see it while I nursed Eli in the car (this happened a lot on our trip). Afterwards, I did a quick walk-by of it and then we took an unofficial hike up a hill across the street to get a birds-eye view. Here it is from ground level.

Kind of hard to see a lot of it.

I had checked out a book from our library about Yellowstone and it proved to be well worth bringing. It recommended a few hikes that we ended up doing and it also gave us a lot of good general information about the history of the park, etc.

Here's the view from the trail:

See how small the people are? You got a much better perspective from where we were of the colors and size. The boardwalk only went by a portion of the spring.

Ethan, Matt, Luke, Noah, and Hunter.

 So neat!

 We ate lunch down by the road. Sam is continuing his cross-eyed shenanigans, as you can see.

After lunch we headed over to hike Mystic Falls. There was a sign warning that this was a popular bear area, so along with two cans of bear spray, two guns, and two walking sticks with bells on them, Matt's family would also randomly yell, "Hey, bear!" I'm pretty sure any bears in the vicinity heard us coming a mile away.

 The hike was 3.4 miles (roundtrip). By the time we got there, Eli had had it. He was hot, tired, and hungry. So I hightailed it back to the car with Sam and Dan's parents. Dan and Afton stayed a little bit longer with everyone else.

 I thought it was a beautiful hike and a prefect distance for the kids. We forgot water (duh), so that was dumb. I'd totally recommend the hike, though.

After the hike we headed over to see Old Faithful. We couldn't find a parking spot, and we knew it was going to erupt really soon, so Dan kind of idled the car in a random spot where he could see it, and Afton and I got out to watch it.

Before:

 During:

 Tapering off:

We next headed over to see Old Faithful Inn. Super cool inside. The chimney is seven stories high.

On our way out of the park that day we saw some more bison. They were all halfway done shedding their winter coats so they look mangy.

Even though some people think they are glorified cows, these guys are no joke! Before our trip I heard about two people getting attacked by bison this summer in Yellowstone. One was five feet away and turned her back to have her picture taken. The other was a man who got THREE feet away and tried to take a picture with his tablet. Come on, people. I can't imagine getting three feet away from one. I was about 15 feet away from one who was sleeping and then suddenly woke up and it freaked me out.

 We also spotted a bald eagle. You can kind of see him in the tree. He's on the top right.

After our fun filled day we stopped in the town of West Yellowstone for delicious pizza (Wild West Pizzeria), then headed back to the cabin. Matt, Amy, Dan and I also played Blokus. I didn't win.

Our Yellowstone trip part 2

Monday morning Dan picked up our rental car (which only had 84 miles on it!) and we headed out over the scenic beauty of central Idaho. It's really gorgeous for anyone who likes shrubs. And dust. We stopped for lunch in the small town of Carey, Idaho at a place called 93 Express. We'd recommend it. It was either that or the grill at the Sinclair gas station. But really, it was good. And their chicken nuggets were shaped like dinosaurs, which immediately won over Sam and Afton. We drove by Craters of the Moon state park and I made the kids get out and take a picture.

That's a keeper.

Right after passing Craters of the Moon we got a big rock chip in the windshield of our rental car. Of course. We'll see if they charge us for it... The lady at the return said they'd had so many rock chips lately that they'd stopped charging. But ours was big enough that it was questionable.

We arrived in Yellowstone around 5 and met up with Dan's parents and Dan's brother's family (Matt, Amy, Noah, Ethan, Mack, Hunter, and Luke) at our rental cabin. It was Dan's parents' birthday (they have the same birthday!) so we celebrated with cake, cupcakes, and ice cream.

 We visited the rest of the night and planned our adventures for the next day.

Our Yellowstone trip part 1

Our trip to Yellowstone was so much fun! We took a late flight out of Baltimore last Saturday which we almost missed due to a deluge of rain (which made our drive take 2 hours longer than normal). We got in to Boise at midnight and Kirk was kind enough to pick us up. We got to spend Sunday with Kirk, Gretchen, Carter, Wendy, and Sherri. Gretchen made a delicious breakfast, we went to church, we tested out a remote controlled car on a remote controlled car dirt track, we dipped our toes in the Boise River, ate way too many cookies, and we visited. The kids played like they'd never been separated. It was fantastic.

We only lasted 15 minutes at the track. It was like 112 degrees.

 Sam got some dust in his eye that really hurt. He also got his glasses in time for our trip!

 Outtake:

 The best we got.