The unpredictability ~ a Yellowstone bonus!

(Saturday, July 18 ~ Old Faithful area)

After we finished up lunch at the lake, we settled in for the drive back to the Old Faithful area. Caleb was full of energy and was quite the little chatterbox in the backseat, checking his animal identification card and watching for animals. Kylie on the other hand let "the sleepies" get the best of her and she dozed for most of the nearly 40 miles between the two areas.

Due to the hunger/nap time meltdown on Thursday, we had missed taking a stroll around the lesser known geysers near Old Faithful and as we still had a few hours of daylight left, we opted to check things out.

Kylie modeling "safety" while balancing precariously on the belt for her to lean against and who really knows what Caleb was doing...

As luck would have it, we arrived just minutes before Old Faithful was scheduled to "do its thing" and we caught the show as we walked toward the other geysers. Kylie and Caleb were pretty unimpressed with it...

"Geyser? What geyser? Oh, that stinky water sprayer? Hey, are there any apples left, I'm hungry!"

Geyser Hill was worth the effort though. There were so many pretty pools tucked away in the landscape. The water was amazingly clear and the most beautiful shade of turquoise. Different ones had different colors ringing them due to the various bacteria that grew in them.

I don't remember what this one was called, and I hate that the lighting isn't quite right, but it was so beautiful with the orange rings around the blue water!

This was known as the Lion Group Geyser. Why? Because it sounded like there were lions inside the little holes, honestly, it sounded like growling. Caleb was enthralled with this one!

He was no so impressed, however, with Chinese Spring. Apple juice was much more appealing at the moment ~ it was a hot afternoon...

And then we got the bonus excitement of the unpredictability of Yellowstone! Just as we were headed toward Beehive Geyser (less than 100 feet away!), we heard a rush of steam and then it began to erupt!

What a fun surprise!

Beehive averages shooting water about 200 feet into the air for about five minutes. The noise it put off was really impressive!
And then it was over, but what a fun memory! We felt lucky to have seen it as currently Beehive is erupting at intervals ranging from eight hours to five days!

As we walked off Geyser Hill Kylie found some flowers to stop and smell. She wasn't just taking time "to smell the roses" but was actually trying to clear the "stinky" (sulphur) smell from her nose!
One other thing that Ian and I were curious to see there was the Old Faithful Inn. The lodge is open to the public so we decided to see what all the "hub-ub" was about.














We both admit to being pretty impressed that such a structure was built at the turn of the last century! On the way back to the car I noticed another warning about wild animals in the park.

We did well with the bears (the one we saw had to have been at least 150 yards away ~ even more if you count the vertical distance he had on us) but with the buffalo, not so much. How about 75 inches?

On our way out of the park I blew kisses at the Nez Perce and then we were headed for dinner. I think the woman in the CR-V in front of us had been in the park for a few days too. First day folks were reaching for their cameras at this "close encounter of the elk kind." Not our Honda friend ~ check out her expression in her mirror!

Last stop before a final campfire at the campground? Dinner in the (tourist trap) town of West Yellowstone. That's where I got this shot. I just have to post it again because I think it is a good summary of how my kids are wired differently.

Can I get an AMEN from anyone else with at least one boy and one girl in the house?
On the patio of the place we had dinner. The ambiance was great, the food ~ well, it was "ho-hum." I just had to include this shot because I think Ky did a great job of catching her Daddy's smile!

One more campfire to roast marshmallows...

And all too soon, our time in Yellowstone came to an end. Sunday morning we had the car packed and ready to go.
There was time for one last family picture (to remember our cute little cabin) and then it was Pop-Tarts for breakfast again as we made our way south back toward Salt Lake City. We were all sad to go, but I have a feeling that won't be our last trip out west as a family, and next time we'll be a family of five!

Kylie thinks it stinks!

(Saturday, July 18 ~ Mud Volcano, and lunch on Lake Yellowstone)

When we arrived at Mud Volcano, we parked the car and instead of heading straight to the boardwalks we decided to take a "potty break" (we had perhaps a few more of those with two little ones along than we would have if it had been just us...) and I almost took my camera with me to the "glorified outhouse." I still can remember thinking, "Oh, I don't need to take my camera to the bathroom, I'll just run back to the car and grab it before we investigate the area." When Kylie and I came out of the bathroom ~ laughing at some nonsense joke she had just made up ~ Ian whispered (without moving his lips ~ that's how you know he is SERIOUS about something), "Very slowly pick Kylie up!" And when I didn't respond quickly enough for his liking he added a firm, "NOW!"
Then I glanced left and realized the reason for his gruffness. It wasn't out of irritation that we had taken so long of a potty break, it was out of concern for our safety ~ there was a buffalo about 15 feet away from us and he was casually strolling our way! Suddenly all those signs that I'd seen all over the park (and just photographed at our last stop ~ see the end of this post for a reminder) didn't seem so funny anymore! I think that for the five minutes as he passed by (at the closest I could have taken one step forward and stretched out my arm to touch him!) I didn't breathe at all. Ian quietly whispered, "If he starts to turn toward us, sprint to the outhouse!" The buffalo paused, turned his head and looked at us, almost as if to say, "Hmm, those buffalo are strangely naked." and then finally turned his head back toward Sulphur Cauldron and moseyed on his way.
After that I didn't really want to see anymore buffalo...

Mud Volcano was a hillside still active with different forms of geothermal activity. We saw a pond at a rolling boil,

(actually, it wasn't boiling, it was just gases escaping through cracks in the bottom of the pond)

a dragon's lair,

(okay, so a dragon didn't live in the cave, but it was pretty cool ~ and easy to imagine that a fire breathing dragon could be in the back of the crevice)

and we smelled some pretty smelly fumes!

Kylie freely expressed her dislike of the sulphur smell...

and eventually made her desire to head on to the lake rather apparent!

As we walked back to the car we got one more look at just how active the area at Mud Volcano still is ~ areas of the parking lot are caving in and steaming...

At this point we hopped back into the car to travel the remaining miles south to Lake Yellowstone. I knew from reading that it was the largest high altitude freshwater lake in North America, but I was slightly unprepared for the miles and miles of shoreline that we drove along! Immense is a better word to describe it. In fact, when we got out of the car at the picnic area, Kylie asked why the ocean didn't have any waves here. Yeah, it seemed THAT big.

This picture doesn't really capture the enormity of the lake, but I loved the one puffy cloud in the sky.

We enjoyed our picnic right on the water, the food was good, the company was great, and the view was breathtaking!

Eskimo kisses from my sweet girl
Kylie lining up our stick family. Notice that there are a LOT more than five sticks standing. It was on this trip that Kylie took off her shoes when she ran out of fingers and after ten continued in a giggling voice, "Eleven kids, twelve kids..."
Little Miss Adventure headed back to the table after she declared the water "Too cold to swim!"

And just in case you wonder where Caleb was during the picnic...

He had one beautiful setting for his afternoon siesta!

A little guy has got to catch a few Zzzs sometime!

No worries about Caleb missing lunch ~ we made him a peanut butter sandwich and pulled out a few chips! He was all smiles as he munched his lunch on the way back to the Old Faithful geyser area!

This picture mostly for Tricia and Cindy who were both concerned after the cauliflower post that Caleb had lost his passion for fried potatoes... No worries!

Six word Wednesday

Proof of difference between the sexes...

**From the last night of our trip, just before dinner in the (tourist trap) town of West Yellowstone.**
****By the way, if you haven't seen our baby girl, scroll down to the previous post!****

"...where the buffalo roam..."

(Saturday, July 18 ~ A Buffalo kind of morning!)

Saturday morning we finally had "our groove on" and had figured out how to be in the park before 8:00. The only downside is that it made for a funny picture when we finally stopped to get our "here's proof that we were really at Yellowstone as a family" picture...

Yep, the kids were still in their pajamas.

We figured that we usually took a moment to slather on sunscreen at our first stop, may as well take a few minutes to get them dressed at that time too. Ian and I quickly got dressed that morning and just scooped the kids out of bed and put them in the car. Why didn't we think of that the first morning?

Of course taking the kids straight from the bed to the car seat presented another hurdle to overcome. Breakfast. No worries, we solved that one pretty easily too...

Frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts, breakfast of champions! Funny thing is that Caleb wasn't too impressed with the pastry and handed it back to Ian ~ minus the frosting. Now that's talent!

And of course, I had to give my spiel of, "This is vacation and we won't be eating Pop-tarts for breakfast when we get back home..."

Yeah, I spent a lot of time at the wheel on this trip. Not so much by choice but because as we were going through security here in NC at the airport a "not so friendly" TSA agent informed Ian that his license had expired back in May... Luckily (and maybe frighteningly) she waved him on through.

Thanks to our early(er) start and fueled by a nutritious breakfast, we made good time around the top of the lower loop to Hayden Valley. As we came around one of the corners we saw lots of cars pulled off to the side. We slowed down to see what folks were getting out of their cars to view, but when we realized it was just a single buffalo we decided to just point it out to the kids and keep on going. After all, we had experienced several close encounters of the buffalo kind already! I did of course have the camera in hand as we went by and got this nice shot of the guy causing the traffic jam.

Buffalo butt! (Just cause I can...)

Five minutes later we experienced one of the most magical moments we had in Yellowstone. We came around the corner to see an entire herd of buffalo roaming across the prarie.

Click on the photo to enlarge it! It was so cool to see so many of these animals in their natural habitat!
We ended up spending some 45 minutes just watching. Caleb repeatedly sang the Water Buffalo song and pointing to the buffalo on the animal identification guide and then out at the herd.
Kylie kept wanting to take pictures. (I was helping her zoom in in this one).

I honestly think we could have stayed for another 45 minutes or so, but after we had both of the kids dressed and took some time to admire the animals as a family we decided if we were going to complete the bottom loop that we'd better get moving. Lake Yellowstone was calling!

On the way we decided to stop at Sulphur Cauldron. By this point Kylie was really into journaling her experiences and asked to take her journal and crayons with her to the overlook.

She stood for several minutes observing and then deciding how to best capture what she saw in a drawing. It was so precious!
After a few minutes she got distracted from her drawing by a buffalo who had been rolling in the dust.

By this point we had seen so many buffalo that it would have been easy to forget that they aren't just big lovable beasts. This sign was a sobering reminder that they aren't as friendly as they appear...
Good thing we saw it too because at our very next stop we had the closest encounter I hope I ever have with a buffalo! (But that happened at Mud Volcano and that's another post...)

Mammoth Hot Springs

Our last stop on our anniversary in the park was the Mammoth Hot Springs area. I was reading our guide book about the area just about the time I heard Caleb excitedly squeal "ELKS!" from the backseat. And then I heard Ian say, "Holy cow, check these things out!" About that time I had come to the part that said to be sure to drive around the square to see the elk sunning themselves on the lawn. Yep, there they were...

Some folks were brave (or stupid) enough to get out of their cars and approach the elk to take closer pictures. We decided to play it safe ~ for the sake of the children ~ and stay in the car.

We drove just around the corner and this alien landscape greeted us. Mammoth Hot Springs totally lived up to its "otherworldly" appearance that we'd heard about! For a look at the really unusual, this area is not to be missed in Yellowstone.

The tall "peak" is actually a dormant hot spring cone. I'm sure that was an interesting "thermal feature" when it was active!

We began to explore the maze of boardwalks around the area when Caleb (who was clutching his animal identification card as if his life depended on it) started excitedly proclaiming, "Bunny!" Both Ian and I were prepared to tell him to keep up and that there were no bunnies here when low and behold, we noticed the long eared Jackrabbit just beside the boardwalk and Caleb was correctly pointing to it on the card. I really need to learn my lesson about doubting that boy!

Hello Mr. Bunny!

His amazing identification skills apparently got to his brain and before long Caleb was trying to identify any bird that flew by. Cute for sure, but as anyone who has toured with me before knows how I can get focused, I began thinking (and maybe even saying) "We're burning daylight here sweetie!"

It was the end of a long, hot day, and at this point Caleb was protesting walking. His stall tactic was brilliant ~ he sat down, pointed to an owl, and would say, "Owl say hoo-hoo!" Cute ~ the first five times...

Eventually we managed to get Caleb to come along (read that Ian carried him) and we traded taking photos with another family in front of the terraces.

It looked like a glacier, but is actually travertine (a mineral build-up) that is the result of about 50 hot springs in the area.

This one made me think of a snowy morning in a field.

As a trade to keep the peace when Caleb laid claim to the animal identification card, we allowed Kylie to use the old point and shoot to record her perspective of the trip. She took her role very seriously and on the first day spent a lot of time asking us if she should take a picture of a certain thing. By the second day she had fallen into her role of photographing and had a pretty good eye for a three year old! Despite the fascinating landscape, Kylie eventually decided that her cute little brother made a more interesting subject to photograph.

This was my favorite of the series I took of her photographing him.

Are these two seriously cute kids or what? Poor Caleb's face was so chapped from having us wipe his nose about 5,672 times on Thursday and Friday. He had one dreadful head cold but managed to keep his sunny disposition all the same!

By the time we finally headed from Mammoth back to the West entrance we knew we were going to be getting a late dinner. As we came around one of the last corners before we got back to Madison Junction, we noticed a bunch of cars stopped on the side of the road. In the interest of time's sake we almost kept going, but at the last second Ian encouraged me to pull over to see what everyone was looking at. It was a good thing we did. We made our only bear spotting in that stop.

Did you find it? Follow the white tree trunk furthers to the right in the middle of the picture up to the top. Just above it you will see a black dot. Yep, that's the closest we got to a bear this time.

We rolled into West Yellowstone at about 9:15 and forgot any pretenses of finding a nice place for us to have an anniversary dinner. We settled for the Canyon Diner and had burgers and onion rings. By the time we made it back to the campground we had to wake the kids for quick showers and then we all crashed!