Erik planned another fantastic vacation for us this year -- Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We spent more time in Yellowstone, which ended up being the better choice, because Jacob is still a bit little to do a lot of hiking -- and we don't have a backpack carrier for him -- and that's about all there really is to do in the Tetons. Jacob was awesome on the plane ride out. I packed paper, crayons, stickers, and books, and Erik's mom bought some mini Tonka trucks, so Jacob had plenty to play with. He loved looking out the plane's windows, and he even took a nap!
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| Watching "hairpanes" |
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| Eating a snack and playing with a button snake |
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| No mommy! I eating! |
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| Catching some zzzzz's on mommy |
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| I play trucks! |
We flew into Salt Lake City, picked up a rental car (our "cation car" as Jacob called it) and started the drive up to Yellowstone.
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| Now entering: potato country |
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| The Grand Tetons waaaaaaay off in the distance |
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| Almost there... |
Along the way we stopped at a Walmart and picked up a cooler and some food for the week. For our Yellowstone portion of the trip, we stayed in a rental townhouse just outside the park in West Yellowstone, MT. That dropped us in at the West entrance to the park, which was really pretty convenient. The park's main road is laid out in a figure 8 -- so we were able to do the bottom loop easily one day, the top loop easily another day, and then fill in with whatever we wanted.
On our first full day, we started with the bottom loop. That took us past the majority of the geysers and pools and Old Faithful, then swung us up to Yellowstone Falls. The geological make-up of the park is amazing. You'll be driving through prairie-like areas and then all of a sudden, you see steam rising from the ground! Or you drive through mountains and bam! More thermal spots! There were thermal spots in the middle of lakes! It was incredible. Jacob thought that the "smoke and steam" was caused by steam engines. I think he was more fascinated by that than anything else in the park.
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| Approaching a thermal area. |
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| Mud pots -- or boiling mud... |
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| Geyser at Fountain Paint Pots |
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| Thermal areas along the river |
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| Grand Prismatic Spring "lake" |
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| We learned that the blue water is the hottest water. |
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| Inside Old Faithful Inn |
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| THIS is Old Faithful |
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| Amazing landscape |
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| Bison just tend to walk down the road. |
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| At Yellowstone Falls. Jacob LOVED waterfalls. |
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| The "lower falls" of Yellowstone Falls |
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| Back at our townhouse, Jacob made this his hiding place. |
On our second full day in the park, we did the upper loop. In this loop, we stopped at another geyser basin, checked out the "upper falls" to Yellowstone Falls, then went up to Mammoth Hot Springs, and saw the original entrance to the park at the Roosevelt Arch. We were so close to seeing a bear on our drive. A ton of people had pulled over along the road and were out of their cars with cameras and binoculars. When we arrived, the bear that had been out roaming around decided to roam behind some trees. And stay there. So we got back in the car and continued on our way.
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| Norris Geyser Basin |
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| I thought this was such an interesting shade of blue... |
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| My little rock climber. |
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| He told us he will climb mountains when he's older. |
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| The "upper falls" of Yellowstone Falls |
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| Driving through the mountains up to Mammoth Hot Springs -- snow! |
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| At Tower Fall |
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| Mammoth Hot Springs Terrace |
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| "Cheese! Take picture, mommy!" |
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| The Roosevelt Arch |
On our third full day, we did a reverse of the lower loop so that we could stop at Gibbon Falls, Yellowstone Falls (again), and Mud Volcano.
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| Gibbon Falls |
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| "Upper falls" to Yellowstone Falls |
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| Mud Volcano |
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| Biscuit Basin |
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| Biscuit Basin |
Our last day in the park was also a travel day for us. We packed up our things and made our way to the South Entrance -- which took us along the bottom portion of the lower loop. We stopped by a few things we hadn't had time to do yet: Firehole Falls, Firehole Lake Drive, Black Sand Basin, and a final stop at Old Faithful. We were lucky to get on Firehole Lake Drive. It had been closed when we first got there because the road had melted. Literally. It made the national news. You can read about that here:
Too Hot: Yellowstone Road Melts. It's funny, because we didn't know why it was closed when we first passed it. Later that day, one of my friends had posted a news story to her Facebook feed about the road melting. Kind of crazy.
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| Firehole Falls |
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| Black Sand Basin |
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| Great Fountain Geyser |
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| Melted pavement on Firehole Lake Drive |
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| More melted pavement |
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| A volcano geyser on Firehole Lake Drive |
It started to rain when we were at Old Faithful, so instead of doing the small walk/hike we had originally planned, we just packed ourselves back up in the minivan and started our drive down to Grand Teton National Park.
But the Tetons portion of vacation will be another blog entry at another time.
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| Storms passing through as we leave Yellowstone |
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| Our final stop in Yellowstone: lunch just before the South Entrance |
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| Ready to go on the next adventure |
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| Jacob took this picture as we drove |
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