Friday, June 17th
We drove past this sign many, many times and every time we did we would say "we need to stop and take some pictures." Since this was our last day we figured we better do it!
We tried to angle it so you could see the Tetons in the background.
Kayla is not an early bird and this morning was just too early for her and she refused to get out of the truck to take a picture so here is our partial family picture in front of the sign.
Like I said before, the drive from our campsite on the south side was long. Yellowstone is an amazing place to visit but you do spend a lot of time in the car so by this point in the trip, the kids were D.O.N.E. with being in the car. They were good but they were done so we made a lot of stops this day to let them play.
We pulled off at this lake to let the kids stretch. I think this is Jackson Lake but it could be Lewis Lake, I can't remember.
We thought for sure someone was going to end up with wet shoes for the rest of the day but they all did great and no one fell in - whew! That would have made the rest of the day a little more uncomfortable.
This day we were exploring the road that goes to the east side of the park, coming up from the south entrance. Along the way this fox crossed the road right in front of our truck. We weren't prepared and almost missed it but we caught it just in time.
Beauty:
Our first stop was Fishing Bridge at Yellowstone Lake. As soon as the boys got out of the truck, they immediately went straight to the trees to start climbing ~ too much time sitting in the truck!
We wrangled the monkeys out of the trees and headed into the Museum and Visitor Center.
T on the pillar at the entrance.
They had some pretty cool displays that we checked out for a little while.
Then we headed out the back of the center to the lake.
Hailey and Ali
Me and Lorraine
Nik and Evan playing at the lake.
Our crew enjoying the view of the lake.
Since he didn't have a shovel, Kurt had to resume his other beach position.
Me and my Hailey Bailey
Me and my love
There were quite a few butterflies on the beach and Kayla managed to get one on her finger. It is sitting facing the camera so all you can really see is a line coming off her finger but that's the butterfly. We didn't get a side shot of it before it flew away.
After we were done exploring the visitor center and the lake, we headed further up the road. We decided that it was time for lunch and saw some picnic places marked on the map. We pulled into Nez Perce (or maybe it was Nez Pierce or something like that). There were several picnic tables right along the river. AMAZING! So gorgeous!
There were buffalo right across the river from us.
As we were sitting there eating, hunter-man Marty looked up and spotted a herd of elk coming out of the trees. There must have been 20-30 of them. It is so hard to see things in pictures but they are the brown little blobs right along the tree line. We watched them for a little bit and then they headed back into the trees. That was pretty cool to see.
We kind of hoped that a grizzly would come out of the trees across the river from us so we could see him from afar but no such luck . . which was probably a good thing.
And, of course, there was more tree climbing.
Then we were off to Mud Volcano. This place was BY FAR the stinkiest place we had visited. Whoo-wee! Stink city!
This one was called Dragon's Breath. It was pretty cool!
I made Hailey take a picture of these because I loved the little moss with the pink and green plants growing out of them. It was so pretty in this land of brown, goopy muck.
Then we headed back up to the Upper and Lower Falls. We had been on the North side back on Monday and now we were going to be on the south side. We saw buffalo/bison a lot during this trip but it was usually just one or two at a time. Along this drive we went through a section that I am calling "Bison Valley." They were everywhere. It was pretty cool.
We passed this herd just laying right on the side of the road.
They were pretty chill just sitting there. No big deal that traffic was right in front of them.
We then went to Upper Falls View. This was the waterfall we could see from afar on the trail we took on Monday.
The kids were more interested in playing then seeing anymore waterfalls.
Then we drove to Artist Point to see the Lower Falls. This is the waterfall that we stood right on top of. You can't really see the platform in the picture but it is just to the right of the waterfall.
By this point, we were all pretty wiped out. We had been in the trucks for days and driving, driving, driving. It was all so amazing and we were to the point that just could not absorb any more amazingness. Have you ever reached that point before? It was kind-of weird! Since we had a long drive back to camp, we decided to leave and get back to camp and have a relaxing evening before we got back in the trucks on Saturday to drive home.
Lorraine and I preparing dinner.
Grandma Kathy playing games with the kids.
This was absolutely an amazing trip! Everything was just so beautiful and amazing! Did I use those words enough in these posts? I just don't know how else to describe it. It was truly amazing! Definitely worth the lllooonnnggg drive out there!
Now we just had to make the lllooonnnggg drive back home!
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