A quick side note, Sunday was my dads 40th anniversary of his baptism. I'm so grateful for those who taught him the gospel, and to him for the wonderful example he's been to me in my life.
Okay back to vacation. The last time we went to Yellowstone was a long time ago (we can't remember if it was the trip when I was 11 or 14). Either way, it's been a long time since we'd been there. Last time we went it was during the summer and it was pretty busy.
If you want to see the wildlife in Yellowstone, now is the time of year to go! Yes, parts of the park are still closed due to snow, but all of the animals are down low where the snow has already melted.
The first wildlife we saw once we entered the park was a herd of buffalo, Kaylee was quite excited!
We headed down to see Old Faithful first, because they let me choose where to go first, and this was what I wanted to see the most. Somehow, in my memory it was a whole lot bigger and more exciting! I think that has to do with the fact that as a teenager it was hot and we waited for a long time to see it erupt. This time, the weather was nice and we only had to wait about ten minutes for the eruption. Its still a beautiful thing to watch, and seeing Kaylee experience it for the first time was pretty fun too!
(Special thanks to the guy sitting next to us, I actually got to be in a picture!)
After seeing Old Faithful, we decided to drive around as much of the park as we could. This funny picture was taken near Cooking Hillside (created in 1978, the year I was born). Before that it had been dense forest, but a few earthquakes opened up the ground and now there is a strong smell of sulpher coming up :)
Next on the trip was the waterfalls... Upper Falls and Lower Falls. After going to Lower Falls, Dad and I wondered why mom made us stop at Upper Falls too - we thought it was just a different view of the same waterfall. Turns out it's a completely different waterfall. The first two pics are at Lower Falls, the really green one is Upper Falls.
Our next stop was one we were all looking forward to - The Mammoth Hot Springs! Little did we know that since we were there last, they should have changed the name to Mammoth DRY Springs! We were quite disappointed when we got there and there were no hot springs anymore, they're all dried up. It's still beautiful to see what nature has created, but just not the same when you're expecting to see the bubbling hot springs.
After leaving the hotsprings (aka dry springs) we stopped to use the facilities and to get drinks. Below are some pics of what greeted us as we pulled in. There was much discussion over whether these were deer or elk. I won't say who thought they were what, but a local pulled in soon after and set us all straight that they were elk. (I still can't see the difference, but he promised us they were elk)
On our way back to the timeshare we saw a huge group of cars pulled over. As we passed, all we saw was a bunch of ducks (its not uncommon to see cars pulled over taking pictures of who knows what!) but as we drove past, we saw a grizzly bear! Before the car was even stopped, I was jumping out with both cameras and wanted to get some pictures before the bear decided to move away.
Funny story here, as we were watching the bear, I mentioned that the bear should turn a little because I didnt' want butt shots. A cute old lady next to us said "oh but it's such a cute butt, it's nice and round." It was hilarious, everyone who heard her was laughing. The bear did decide to cooperate and let me get some better shots of it.
Here's some pics of each of us standing on the side of the road with the bear behind us. (I'm still getting used to using the SLR camera, so the bear is in focus, but not the people - sorry!) The one of Kaylee is by far one of my favorite pictures, which of us looks excited to be standing within 30 yards of a wild grizzly bear?
That's as scared as she got, and it still was nothing CLOSE to how scared she was when she saw the pig in the petting zoo! Upon seeing the pig, tears began to fall. With the grizzly, she just wasn't sure she wanted to be between me and the bear, she liked it better when I was right next to her.
As we headed out of the park, the buffalo decided they didn't want to be outdone by the grizzly. We were so excited about seeing a grizzly bear so close, that the buffalo had to do a lot to get us excited again. But.. they succeeded. Being in the middle of a herd of buffalo as you're driving down the road is quite the experience! The baby calves are only a day or two old, it was so amazing to see them walking along and keeping up with the herd!
I did mention that we were right in the middle of a herd, right?
This is how close to the car they were, the window doesn't go all the way down so that's the best pic I could get. Later on I did stick the top half of my body out the window to get better pictures, but with the mama buffalo right there, I wasn't getting any part of my body out the window!
We were the last car that the buffalo decided to let out. This is a picture of the road behind us. You can't really see them, but there's a whole line of cars behind the buffalo!
Kaylee finally got brave enough to stick her head out the window a bit to see the buffalo. They were far away, but it was a big thing for her to do and she was quite excited about all the buffalo we were able to see!
We lost count, but we saw hundreds of buffalo and at least 12 calves. It was an experience that I'm sure none of us will forget. For my parents and I, having Kaylee along made it even better. She kept saying "That was AMAZING!" and other things that made us realize how truly exciting seeing all of these animals was for a child. Seeing her excitement over each thing was priceless.
Tuesday morning we got up, packed our stuff back up and headed out. We stayed in West Yellowstone, but were going back through the park and exiting through the south entrance to go visit some friends of my parents. About five minutes inside the park, we were stopped and told by a park ranger that they were herding the buffalo back into the park and it could be a couple of hours. Luckily they herded them into a field and let a lot of cars through. Below is a pic of the line of cars waiting, with one stubborn buffalo off to the side. The other pic is of the park rangers on horseback that were doing the herding.
At first when we got stopped, we thought about turning around and just going home from there. But, we decided that watching them herd the buffalo would be fun too. The rest of the day, well we won't go there. It was a long, exhausting day... we left the timeshare at 9:30am and it was 9:30pm by the time I got home.
Thanks Dad and Mom for taking Kaylee and I along on your trip! It was a vacation we'll always remember.
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