The Mother of all National Parks

We stayed in a hotel in Bozeman, MT after dropping Katie off, and headed into the north entrance of Yellowstone the next afternoon after cleaning and reorganizing the car and stopping at a laundry-mat. Here's the entrance; I have to admit it was a little anti-climactic as you have to drive quite a ways after it to see all the 'cool' attractions of the park.

We got to the first 'attraction' which was a plethora of hot springs. The sulfur smell was quite strong, but the uniqueness of what you are seeing definitely helps you ignore that. Don't these look like they are taken in winter with snow covering everything??

Yellowstone's main road is a big figure 8, so our goal the first day was to see what we could on the northeast top of the figure 8 on our way to our campsite. I forget what this was called, but it was just a quick 200 yd or so jaunt from the parking lot. Naomi was sleeping at this point, so Josh and I took turns running down there to see it and snap pictures...let's just say we have similar photo-taking sense (probably because Josh has taught me most of what I know) because we ended up with a lot of doubles ;-)

Because we are always looking for the 'highest' or 'biggest' or 'most strenuous' thing to do (lame I know...but just being honest ;-) we decided to try out a 5 mile hike to one of the taller points in the park that first afternoon. You actually hike the fire road up to it which is a bit discouraging knowing that if you had permission you could just drive up instead of working so hard...but at the top there is an awesome fire tower, and you can see so far! It definitely helped us gain a better appreciation for the vastness, variety, and beauty that this park had to offer. 

Those are the Tetons, 75ish miles away...our next destination...isn't that awesome?

Typical family pic at the top...as usual Josh carried Naomi up, and I did down...but for some reason we always ended up taking the pics while she was on my back, haha!

These trees were so interesting and such a stark beauty against the BLUE sky!

 After the hike we drove to our campsite, getting caught in 'wild animal watching' traffic on the way. The main thing we learned in Yellowstone: most people see cool things because they bring BINOCULARS. You are only cool if you have binoculars. You can't see much of anything without binoculars. You shouldn't go to Yellowstone without binoculars. We won't ever go there again with binoculars. You got it? K, good...just wanted to make sure, so that if you go, you don't forget to bring yours :)

Our quaint little campsite for two nights...right next to a couple decked out RVs...at least we didn't have to worry as much when Naomi screamed in the middle of the night.

The next morning we headed for Old Faithful. The geysers and various other features of this area are amazing. Josh and I kept talking about how you have to constantly remind yourself that the earth is doing what you are seeing; that you aren't at Disneyland where someone is controlling it all with an electrical switch.  I honestly don't remember the name of this geyser, but it was the first big one we saw go off and it lasted for over 20 minutes, it was incredible!

This is the Morning Glory pool that used to be a beautiful blue but so many people threw trash in it a couple decades ago that it has changed to be this rainbow of colors. Still amazing looking, but unfortunate that it's true natural beauty has been destroyed.

We ate lunch at the Yellowstone Inn (I think that's what it was called). It was a beautiful building that was fun to explore!

 Right after lunch we got to watch Old Faithful erupt, and we considered our trip to Yellowstone complete at that point :)

The next stop on the loop for the day took us to more hot springs and colorful pools. They are incredible, but after awhile I have to admit that you feel like if you've seen one, you've seen them all :)

As we were driving, Naomi woke up from her nap and was getting antsy, we saw a bunch of people swimming in the river so we thought Naomi would enjoy a dip. She LOVED it!

After the swim we put on a dry diaper and stuck Nay back in the carseat. We drove to the paint pots and bubbling mud (not the real name...) site and the sign said it was a 1/3 mile walk to the pots. Instead of fighting Naomi to put clothes on her, we just said we would speed walk and be back quick. The looks we got from people were terrible. You would've thought we were verbally and physically abusing her because she only had on her diaper. We thought if we walked fast, we could be back to the car in 10 minutes...well 1/3 of a mile was a bit of an underestimation on the sign's part. And then we ran into a ranger who lectured us about sunscreen on her. We mentioned that she had just gone swimming and we were heading straight back to the car and she stopped and glared at us, asking where we had been swimming...Josh just kept speed-walking with Naomi. I stopped, kinda, because I felt guilty and said the river. She practically yelled at me that there is NO swimming anywhere in the park, especially in the river. I apologized over my shoulder, and just kept going. By the time we got to the mud pots and bubbling mud, we were so guilty-conscienced that Josh put his shirt on Nay and we basically jogged back to the car without really enjoying the sites. Thankfully, when we got back to the parking lot that ranger was no where to be seen...she was probably up the road at that point yelling at everyone to get out of the river. (Note: rangers at Glacier NP...everyone of them was overly kind and helpful; rangers at Yellowstone...I don't think we saw a single one with a smile on their face!)

On our way back to our campsite that evening we stopped at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Naomi had had enough by that point so our sight-seeing was minimal...but what we saw was beautiful!!

 Remember those things I told you to bring if you want to see cool things at Yellowstone? This is why...we think this was a bear because a bunch of people who had brought BINOCULARS were staring off in this direction. This picture is our camera zoomed in to the maximum it goes...which is a lot. Basically, if this was a bear, the best view we got was zooming in on our zoomed in picture on the tiny screen of our camera... :)

 However, we did get to see plenty of elk and buffalo up close, which was cool I guess. But once you've seen fifty of them, what's another hundred?

 The next morning, we left Yellowstone. Honestly, we aren't sure we ever want to go back. It was amazing to see the sights, but it is more of a tourist destination with traffic and big crowds than we prefer for our vacations. We've heard the backcountry is beautiful so maybe one day we'll go back and explore that...but we prefer the peacefulness of where we were headed...the trails of the Tetons.