Yellowstone

We went to Yellowstone for fall break.  In Utah the kids get three days off school in mid-October every year.  The whole state gets the same three days off.  We decided to go to Yellowstone for the extra long weekend.  We drove up on Thursday morning.  By Thursday afternoon we were in the park!  Here we are by the Fountain Paint Pots area.

Grant and John had a nice educational trip.  Grant read of lot of the longer signs and even started keeping a journal on the trip of all our activities.

At Fountain Geyser

John, inspired by Grant I think, also started keeping a journal of our trip.  

John also had a lot of fun reading all the names of the geysers on the signs.  He would loudly read the signs that said not to step off the trail too.

It was cold - colder than when we went 4 years ago.

So it was a little uncomfortable walking around in the cold but we still had a good time.  The days we were walking around the park it was in the 30s.  It was bearable until a stiff wind came up.

Walking toward Grand Prismatic Spring

Grand Prismatic Spring area - they closed some of this area the next day because of high bear activity.  But we didn't see any bears.

And at the Old Faithful Visitor Center

Waiting for Old Faithful to erupt

Matthew and Anna waiting

Woohoo!

October 2019

We tried to sort of reenact a picture we took four years ago

October 2015

Kids being silly - 2019

We had dinner at the Snow Lodge Dining room at Old Faithful

The kids were well behaved and we even got a few nice compliments on their good behavior in a slightly nice sit down restaurant.  Phew!

We had fun swimming at our hotel

The next day we drove up toward Mammoth Hot Springs

A bison walked right next to our car, but I didn't get a good picture.  

 But we did see a lot of other bison.

At Gibbon Falls

At Norris Geyser Basin

 There was a little dusting of snow

By Steamboat Geyser

We did a little hike here and the kids got tired and grouchy

I told them to look happy in this picture...

and then in this picture they could look however they wanted

More views at Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser overlook

We ate some lunch and hiked around the Mammoth Hot Springs terraces

Emma was tired

But she perked up a little

Some of the terraces

John wanted his picture taken

Top view of Palette terrace

Emma and I bringing up the rear

Front view of palette terrace

We found the yellow stone!  I always assumed Yellowstone was named after sulphur rocks that could be found in the area.  But we found out its actually named after the Yellowstone River that goes through the area.  The river was named by native Americans after a rock formation of yellow rock - that is not even in the park.

 Lots of elk near the the Fort Yellowstone area

more elk

We got ice cream near Mammoth Hot Springs - they loaded us up with lots of ice cream because they were closing for the season soon and had to get rid of all the ice cream

Driving we saw some mountain goats

More bison

The next day the west entrance of the park was closed due to snow on the ground

This map shows which roads were open (in green)

So we couldn't get into the park...we went to see an Imax movie in West Yellowstone and then hung out at our hotel.  The kids got to play in the hotel game room and we swam some more.

It was a lazy day

And it snowed a lot more

We waited until the next day to leave because it was snowing a lot.

The snowy car as we got ready to drive back south to Utah

We had to let it defrost for a while

We had a great time and got to see a lot of things even though snow put a damper on some of it.  Here we are driving out of West Yellowstone