Yellowstone National Park

 

Idaho Falls Temple

[We stopped for gas and dinner in Idaho Falls on Saturday night]

Memorial day weekend, we took a trip to Yellowstone National Park. Although my third time (the last time being 8 years ago), it was Simon's first visit to the park. It was snowing when we arrived Saturday night. We pitched the tent in the flurry of flakes and the small ground coating of snow. We hunkered down in our tent and managed to stay warm in our sleeping bags and underneath several blankets we brought with us. We noticed the weather looked cold prior to leaving and packed accordingly. The first two nights were so cold. When we'd return to camp in the evening to cook dinner on our grill, it was so cold that our fingers would turn numb and the hot food, quickly cool off once we took it from the grill.

 

Our first morning heading into Yellowstone, the cloudy sky looked foreboding, cold and dreary.

 Buffalo often demonstrated their dominance by leading the herds of metal animals.

Simon smiling at the awe inspiring bison.

Steam rises from the ground everywhere in Yellowstone.

 Mammoth Hot Springs and the travertine deposits

We only saw one elk. It was in a far off field and the snow clouded the image somewhat.

 We saw many of these deer-like creatures. They have a huge white plume on their rears and their heads are shaped unlike any deer I've seen.

The baby bison were adorable and had such cute bright coats.

Oddly colored pools of steaming water, desolate in the immediate vicinity, but beautiful in the surroundings.

 Sapphire Pool

 Sapphire Pool's ledges went in and suddenly dropped off as cavernous and deep openings.

Our first viewing of Old Faithful. 

 These pools contained such vibrant colors. Simon began craving lobster and crab as we walked near the orange stripes.

 

 From a distance we would see the steam picking up the colors from the pool.

We took a hike up to a waterfall. It was a little over a mile to the falls and was worth the hike.

 

The Lion family: little cub, big cub, lioness, and lion

[It made noise, steamed and little cub spurted briefly, while lion only shot up a couple specks of water]

 

 

Anemone Geyser was one of my favorites. It shoots water every 7-10 minutes. There are two pools. If they are empty you wait a few minutes and they will begin to fill. Once the first fills you will see the second fill shortly and begin to erupt with the first pool draining and shortly thereafter followed by the erupting pool draining as well.

 

Old Faithful's spectacular conclusion to our visit.

We watched Old Faithful erupt three times during our visit: Once on the second day, and twice as we wandered the geyser basin, admiring other geysers (Anemone, the Lions, and Castle). Castle also erupted while we were there which we felt pretty lucky to see as it only shoots water every 12 hours or so; it has a 30 minute eruption phase followed by a 40 minute steam phase. It was incredible to be surrounded by several erupting geysers simultaneously erupting--Plume, Old Faithful, and Castle, and Anemone going off again and again. An incredible demonstration of nature's forces.

 

Three wonderful days with my husband enjoying the beauty and power of our world.