Yellowstone

I suppose I won't torture everyone by telling you the details of our weather (I save that for Kraig) all I'll say is that it couldn't really be any better!

We are staying at an enormous KOA campground just outside the village of West Yellowstone. This campground has tons of kids and ours hit it off with the family next door right after we got here. Ethan is 9 and Ella is 6.

We had a late start for our first day in the park yesterday - we headed out close to 11. We were merrily on our way! We arrived at the park entrance to very, very (Disney World like) long lines but have no fear we bought a National Parks Pass when we were at Carlsbad (thank you nice cavern lady that recommended this!)!!!! We breezed thru and laughed at those we left in the dust. Until....oh about 1mile in cars were no longer going 35-40 mph but under 5. And we had 30 miles to get to our goal of Old Faithful.

Tim had the great idea to get a virtual tour guide. This would be Carmen's father as he is also a GPS. Ryan named him Old Man Jones. Mr Jones told us all kinds of information as we crawled our way thru the park. He asked us to try not to go over 35 mph as we may miss a place to stop. Ah, not a problem. The traffic was a beating so we decided to pull over and have our picnic lunch by the Madison River.

Papa J told us we should check out our first area of geysers and mud pots. He mentioned an unmarked area that had the largest collection of mud pots but to be careful not to step in one and to understand that they could go off at any time. Heck yeah, we had to go see that!!!! We looked like the rebel family going off on our own but it was really cool and we had permission. Even better - he TOLD us we should!

Granted, as busy as the park is, there were very few people at this stop (as they did not have the advice of our Great Poobah) but we were totally off on our own seeing the mud pots. Kylie was asking about bears and we told her not to worry but we did see some good tracks (see photo below). One of the pots did end up being a mini geyser and went off, giving me a heart attack and sent me running to the hills with my children in tow! Ok, maybe not the hills but a good 100' away. Ryan accidentally stepped in more of a mud hole, which started off as an enormous sense of irritation (around us) turning into bragging rights later.

Once we were back on the road we came to find out that the traffic jam/s were not due to the large crowds as much as due to the large bison that liked to show us they owned the joint and could take over the road. They are a spectacular sight in those surroundings. I don't know why they seem so much bigger than the ones in Jackson but they are enormous. We also saw a few elk on our way too.

Turning into Old Faithful, singing our happy song since we had finally arrived came to an abrupt halt when the miles of parking spots were all full along with cars impatiently waiting in every aisle for someone to leave. My wonderful, gallant man offered to drop us off as he had boldly driven up to the close spots (for the record I graciously declined), when those lovely, white reverse lights shined upon us. We had to wait about 15 minutes for Old Faithful to do his thing and it was well worth it. A little ice cream after a walk thru the Old Faithful Inn (along with a random bison just walking around the backside of the hotel) and we were ready to head out.

The bison were, again, having a good ol' time wrecking havoc on traffic but it is really cool to see one just walking along the shoulder as you pass by. As we were finally back in cellphone range (at 4:55pm) I had managed to talk my family into the sunrise kayak trip for this morning and booked it before they realized what time they would be getting up.

It started at 6:30 from Grant's Village but we didn't have to be there any earlier than that. How bad could that be?! This blog is getting a bit long winded so I'll save the rest for tomorrow!