After day 1 and day 2 at Terry's family cabin in Red Lodge, Montana, we planned a day trip to Yellowstone. My friend Suzie had done it a few weeks earlier and given me some pointers, as well as Kendra and the Brue-crew.
Google maps said our trip would be 8 hours of driving so I estimated a ten hour day. Boy oh boy it turned out to be whole lot more, like 15 hours or something. We left the Red Lodge cabin at about 8am and arrived back just after midnight.
We were trucking up Beartooth Highway when traffic came to a halt only a couple miles from the cabin.
We waited patiently in our van for about ten minutes before we got out. Samuel's face is hilarious. I do no know what in the world was going on. Everyone else looks fine! Ha ha ha!
They were resurfacing the highway. We came back two days later and the work was nearly done. Here it was a bit bumpy.
We all enjoyed the mountain streams coming off the melting snow.
I was hoping to re-make photos from our 2009 trip here, but missed the lookout since we thought it was higher. We had been passengers in Terry's folks' Rialta and therefore didn't have any sense of direction. Two days later we found the place, and it's after that highway corner turn below. Whoops.
I stuck my camera out the window and clicked away. I'll post more pictures later but it was just gorgeous, obviously!
The top of the mountains had beautiful wildflowers, but we only saw their blurry version since we never did stop to examine them.
Another thing was I was hoping to see was a wall of snow that Suzie had posted about twice as well as the Brue-crew, but somehow we entirely missed that as well. It's probably just as well since this day was absolutely huge.
Coming down the other side of the mountains.
I didn't know what cool pointy mountain that was so I looked it up. It's Pilot Peak, part of the Beartooth Mountains.
Once we descended the biggest portion of mountain, we stopped for a bathroom break. Even the pit toilets were pretty up there. Ha ha. Oh, and I remember now what happened right before this. There had been a big bumble bee buzz into Terry's window, hit him, and lay dazed on the floor. I wanted him to stop and get it out before it woke up and went all sting crazy but he didn't. He saw that it was stirring but kept driving. Then out of nowhere from behind Terry Ezra screamed the scariest blood curdling scream I have ever heard him scream and he scared us all to death. The bee had woke up and flew at him. After we recovered from our fright, we laughed and decided it was a good time for a bathroom break. Kinda surprised no one peed their pants though.
I made Samuel pose in the grass...
...then I made everyone else pose as well. So pretty.
Very shortly after our break we stopped again at this roadside waterfall that was absolutely gushing down the mountainside.
It was kind of scary the amount of frothy water that was moving under us.
Terry of course risked life and limb to get a closer look and take some pictures.
Gulp!
The clouds were really moving in from Pilot Peak now and it started raining. We stopped in Cooke City, where we had had lunch in 2009 and turned around, but this time for info about where the Yellowstone entrance was. We were completely unprepared for this day-trip as far as planning goes. In contrast, I had everything so well sorted out for our Utah trip, I knew exactly what we were doing and where everything was.
It worked out fine though. We were only a few miles from the Silver Gate, the north entrance to the park. We drove through the rainy Lamar Valley and saw lots and lots of buffalo, quite a lot more than Custer State Park.
Daddy, mommy, and baby. ;)
He was mooing (?) at us. I looked and looked for bears out there or even wolves but didn't see any. I learned later that people do see them out there frequently so it was a bummer we didn't.
We did try to plan a little the night before. I knew I wanted to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone since Kendra and the Brue-crew had posted about it. Then Kendra also suggested the Grand Prismatic Spring and of course we had to see Old Faithful while were there. So we had those three things on our list. We first stopped at Tower Fall, thinking the it was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Wrong. Tower Fall was Tower Fall. I was so confused.
We stopped at the bathroom, bought a couple souvenirs, ate lunch in the van and kept driving to Canyon Village where the Yellowstone River and it's waterfall runs through.
There is the waterfall we were looking for.
Yes, we were looking for Brink of Lower Falls. It had been a bit of a mystery since I didn't know the exact name but we got it figured out.
The hike is only 0.4 miles but descends eight switchbacks 300 feet to the brink of Lower Falls.
It was pretty impressive.
Impressive and a bit freaky. I have nightmares about my kids falling into water like that. But it was beautiful and I'm glad we did it. It was worth it, but the kids didn't think the hike back up was!
The video captures it better, but still not real to life what it was really like.
And that is why it's called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. I didn't know that's what it would look like. Pretty cool!
Looking nearly straight down.
It was so crowded it was difficult to get a family photo.
I like that guy pulling his daughter out of our way. Ha ha. It's not like you can see the waterfall behind us anyway. Oh well.
For some reason, the kids were not psyched about this day trip and whined quite a bit all day long, especially when we wanted to get back out and see the waterfall again. Evie was the primary complainer, she was full on Wilted Flower when it wasn't even hot out! Notice how we're all wearing coats? It was perfect weather in the upper 60s and lower 70s. Just ridiculous. We yelled at them, told them to get over it, then reminded each other that they'd appreciate it when they were older, and got out of the van again. Worth it!
Every postcard in Yellowstone has that on it. Bam!
Difficult again to get a shot amidst the swarms of people and that's why my smile is forced. In the next picture Terry took I was smacking Ezra's head to make him behave. Ha!
We got back in the van and drove south towards the Grand Prismatic Spring that Kendra had specifically suggested but made a couple stops along the way that delayed us. This was the first bit of steam we had seen all day so we stopped real quick to show the kids another reason why were were here - beautiful hot springs.
Beryl Spring was right on the road side and super easy to jump out and see. It did improve the kids' attitudes a little. They couldn't deny that pretty bubbling water and stinky steam was cool.
Hey an elk! We didn't stop, I just stuck my camera out the window again.
We stopped at Artists Paintpots and quickly left after we realized it was an hour hike. We did stop next at the Fountain Paint Pots since we could see an actual geyser sending water and steam into the air and the kids needed to see that too. Plus some mud pots.
Ezra had just fallen asleep so Terry dropped us off, parked, and was gonna sit tight while we explored. Celestine Pool.
Funny orange Bacterial Mats. There were lots and lots of these at the Grand Prismatic. The complicated descriptions of how they're formed make no sense to me but they're cool.
I vividly recall pools like this from my childhood visit here (dad said we stayed just north of here at Norris campground) due to my imagining myself falling into the hot water and getting sucked down into the hole. Yikes!
Mud pots! Or I guess these were the actual Fountain Paint Pots. I vividly remember those too. Thought they were so cool.
Pop pop pop!
A small brown spring around the corner of the boardwalk.
On we went to see that geyser.
There it is along with another pretty pool.
The kids' first geyser experience and I'm not sure precisely which one it was! Either Clepsyda or Morning Geyser.
A group of French bikers asked me to take their picture (and I couldn't remember a single word from two years of French) but when I backed up to get them all in the frame I stepped off the boardwalk. Everyone in the vicinity freaked out. It was so embarrassing but I was fine. I didn't fall through the earth into a steam vent or boiling pool, despite the signs and warnings. Whoops! Anyway, they offered to take our picture too.
So maybe it was the Clepsyda Geyser...
Next we finally reached our second ultimate destination, the Grand Prismatic Spring. The parking was a nightmare so Terry dropped us off and joined us later.
The Grand Prismatic Spring was a part of the Midway Geyser Basin, another little tidbit of info I didn't realize.
The hot spring water came bubbling down the hill from this "yellow" stream into a Firehole River.
Looking uphill to the "yellow" stream. The water wasn't actually yellow, it was just the minerals or bacteria under it. Super cool looking.
Walking along the boardwalk to this huge spring was so hot (well, I guess it's a geyser because it's exploded before and they don't know when it'll do it again). The hot steam coming off the water was incredible. The wind would blow the steam at us like and it felt exactly like a sauna but then the steam would clear and we'd have gaps of cold air, a literal breath of fresh air. So strange.
It had very pretty blue water but because of the steam was difficult to capture.
I waited for a gust and then captured a decent view.
Terry joined us after we got to the Grand Prismatic.
There she is!
I had looked briefly online to discover what in the world this spring even was and saw only aerial views of the spring. Being on the same level with it was much less impressive, but still pretty cool.
All those orange bacterial mats surrounding a giant blue eye-like pool.
How it looks from above.
A little further down.
Up on the hill opposite us I could see people! I said something aloud how that would be the place to go and the lady next to me told me how to get there - just drive down the highway and take the next right.
Another pretty turquoise pool.
And another! I do love those blue colors.
Heading back to the van, which Terry had to park along the highway, and here on the bridge with the yellow streams behind us.
So we loaded up, trying to decide if we wanted to do that extra hike above the Grand Prismatic or not. Terry dropped me off and I went and looked for a sign, but not finding one I asked some people who were returning. They said it was a mile walk, if that. So we decided to go for it and the groans from the kids abounded. They absolutely did not want to go but I'm so glad we did. This was the best part of the entire day. I mapped it with my Garmin watch and even though my watch died, thankfully it recorded it. How cool is that satellite view?!?!
There were some black bacterial mats along the river as we started out our walk.
Another beautiful blue pool. Yellowstone is so cool!!
Just up the trail from the blue pool was an orange brown one. Terry joked about peeing into it and that's why he's smiling. Ha!
That was the only sign we saw and it says Midway Geyser Basin.
We climbed up a steep hill and it twisted back around to the front of the hill and BAM, look at that!
We were SO glad we decided to do the extra hike even though it was 5:45pm already.
We visited with another couple for a few minutes and traded taking pictures of each other.
It looked like a jewel in the midst of a desert. So beautiful.
One more peek-a-boo shot on our way back down the hill.
Okay I lied, this is the last shot. Best part of the day!
The kids were understandably tired and Terry mercifully carried Ezra at the end.
Going by pee-pool and blue pool again. Ha!
There's the bridge we crossed and parking beyond.
Yet another pool across the bridge. It was these unnamed and seemingly random pools and steam vents of Yellowstone that I liked the most. Such a cool and unique place.
From there we drove south once more and finally came to Old Faithful. It was like 6:20pm and we got a spot right up front. We should've known that was a bad sign. The geyser had just gone off at like 6:15. We went to the bathroom, the kids had some ice cream in lieu of dinner, and we explored the gift shop buying a few more things (they've got this thing figured out), and waited on the edge of the boardwalk for it to go off again. That's Terry and the kids on the end bench.
We were all rather tired and grumpy at this point. Terry was trying hard to hold it together and not blow up at the wrestling boys. I think just about everyone who's waited for Old Faithful knows what it's like to play on those benches.
Pretty grasses in the nearly horizontal sunlight. It was 7:30 at this point.
Gradually all the benches filled up. Old Faithful goes off pretty regularly (but not as regular as some others I guess) every 90 minutes or so.
I caught some birds flying by the steam not long before it erupted.
There she blows!
The water took a few tries to go really high.
Almost there...
...almost there...
And she's away!
It was 7:56pm and it was worth the wait. The kids were pretty spellbound, though they wanted to watch on the phone screen. Ha ha. Noah apologizes in the video for being grumpy because he agreed that this was actually pretty cool. That's right, boy!
Believe it or not I actually shortened this video by half. It took four full minutes for Old Faithful to completely quit.
Now that it was after 8pm and we still had hours and hours to drive, we booked it out of there, skipping dinner. On the bright side, I was hopeful that since it was dusk we would see more wildlife on our way out. We did see these elk. A bit past them was a frantic crowd on the side of the road practically crawling over each other to view something in the trees. I jumped out while Terry pulled ahead and had a tiny glimpse of a bear through the trees. It was not worth the crowd for everyone to get out so we kept going.
We drove around huge Yellowstone Lake at the perfect time though, sunset was amazing.
We made one bathroom break and I got out with Evie to shoot the little island (Frank Island?) and clouds.
Behind the pit toilet was this gorgeous view of the lake.
A little closer.
Okay, so even though we were tired, this was pretty cool to see.
From there we drove out the west entrance, past a wildfire that looked like a star way up the mountain side, and into Cody where we got some coffee and snacks and most of the kids slept. We didn't get back to the cabin until after midnight. Boy were we tired. We slept in until 10am the next morning!
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