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| We drove into the park and headed straight to Old Faithful. |
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| Old Faithful was amazing! |
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| This is part of the area surrounding Old Faithful. |
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| We saw Bison everywhere. |
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| Looking at Upper Falls in the area called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. |
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| The Mammoth Falls area near the north entrance. |
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| Part of a herd of elk that we saw every day. |
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| Another thermal area in West Yellowstone. |
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| Another view of the Roosevelt Arch. |
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| Heading out on our last day. It was freezing that morning, but of course the boys still wore shorts. |
This was by far the longest road trip we've done as a family. It was great, even though there was a lot of together time in small spaces. We drove to Missoula the first day and spent the night, then continued to Yellowstone the next day. We drove to the park and decided that was the day we'd see Old Faithful. We didn't even check the schedule to see if we were close to seeing an eruption, but luckily we timed it right and got there 20 minutes before it was supposed to erupt. It starts as a small simmer, then slowly works up into a full tilt blast and it did not disappoint! The area surrounding Old Faithful is a geothermal wonderland. Did you know that 2/3rds of the world's geothermal activity is right here? The thermal pools vary in size and color and amount of activity but they are surreal and amazing.
Yellowstone is filled with sweeping vistas of mountains, rolling green hills, steaming hot springs and at random places, bison and elk crossing the road. The bison in particular seem very unconcerned with getting close to humans. They walk across or on roads and basically make cars move around them. We also saw elk, pronghorn antelope and bald eagles. No bears, but there is undoubtedly bear activity pretty often based on the signs earning people to keep food packed away.
The day we arrived the weather was perfect....as you can see in the Old Faithful photos. From that point on, it got colder every day. The last photos from West Yellowstone were taken when it was barely 40 degrees. We did a fairly expedited tour of that area since we weren't quite dressed for the weather.
We did manage to get in our river rafting trip before the weather was too chilly and that was fortunate since it was a fun adventure. But sadly, the fly fishing did not happen because it was pouring rain and very cold and those are not conditions that lend themselves to a happy day of fly fishing. Pictures of river rafting up next!
