Yellowstone

So we did manage to get up pretty early this morning. Problem was we both decided we could use an extra hour of sleep so we climbed back in bed!

We eventually got up and went to breakfast and still managed to get everything loaded before 10:00. It was a couple of hours to Yellowstone and we hadn't planned on extra time for road construction.
We got to the park just after noon and headed toward the Geyser Basin.

We decided to go the opposite direction around the loop from when we went 16 years ago. The one thing Sport really wanted to see was Old Faithful so that was on the top of the list, but first we stopped at a couple of the geysers so the kids could see how they worked. The underground forces at Yellowstone are so amazing! My little ones had never seen anything like it.

We arrived at Old Faithful just minutes before it spouted which was perfect since we really didn't have tons of time to see everything we wanted to see in the park. After that we continued the drive and I had a couple of other things on the list. The kids wanted wildlife and we saw both male and female elk and tons of buffalo, some of them right up by the road. We also watched the chipmunks play for a while when we stopped at the Upper and Lower Falls.

The kids loved playing in Yellowstone Lake! One of their favorite stops was the Artist's Paintpots even thought we had to hike quite a ways to see it. I don't think the hike bothered them as much as the mosquitoes. Even bug spray wouldn't keep them away.

We finally left the park around 8:30 and ate dinner at an Arby's in West Yellowstone. Then it was a 2-hour drive back to Idaho Falls. We could have stayed in West Yellowstone but the hotels were about 4X the price. So we drove...

We arrived at 11:00 and the kids were still dying to get in the pool. We finally sent them to their room about midnight. We are traveling to Helena tomorrow. I've never been that far into Montana, so I'm excited to see if it is much different. We are ultimately headed for Glacier National Park. Such a fun new adventure! I will update you tomorrow.