yEllOwStone naTional PArk

So, at the beginning of the year, we realized that Brent would only have to take 4 days off of work in order to get 9 days if we went on vacation at the end of August. Since this was our 10 year anniversary week, we decided we were going to do something fun. Where to go? I wanted to go to Yellowstone - I don't really know why, just wanted to - and Brent wanted to go to Glacier National Park in Montana. I read a little about each of them and we decided on Yellowstone this year. It was also a good time to go to Utah to meet our new nephew, Jayson, so going to Yellowstone cut down on the driving a bit. (More on Jayson tomorrow)

Anyway, I took nearly 400 pictures in Yellowstone, so here are the highlights. We spent two full days in Yellowstone. We decided that if you want to see everything you need at least 3 full days in the park. We had great weather and it was not that crowded. The guy at our motel said that the week before Labor Day is the best time to go to the park. It's always really quiet. Then it gets busier again in September. Yeah us!

We stayed in West Yellowstone in a little cabin. And when I say little, I mean little.

The bed was situated so whoever was on the wall side had to climb over the other person to get out. The manager kept asking us if it was too small for us. It was cute and we weren't there to hang out in the cabin.

Welcome to the Park. Apparently someone got a little close to this sign, but it was the only one in West Yellowstone and we wanted the picture. So, we are trying to ignore how crooked it is. Let's all pretend together.

We saw a lot of wildlife, which I always love. The first day we saw a badger ambling across the road. That was interesting. We saw a TON of bison....

a whole herd of elk, one big male up close and another male hanging out on someone's lawn...

we saw some deer up close - close enough to hear one making funny noises. I don't know what that was all about...

A moose and her baby...

And...a chipmunk...

We also saw a lot of geysers. A lot of the area looked like Volcano National Park in Hawaii. I guess they are both volcanoes, so that makes sense.

Castle Geyser went off while we were waiting for Old Faithful. It was still erupting when we go there.
Clepsydra geyser that has been going off continuously since the 1959 Hepkin Lake earthquake.

And Constant Geyser that isn't constant, but still easy to see erupt.

And, of course, we saw the granddaddy of all geysers, Old Faithful. Twice, actually.

While we were waiting for the eruption, there was this very loud child who was tired of waiting for this geyser. He was funny though, "We've been sitting here for 1 hour waiting for this 'faithful' geyser that's never going to erupt." He got a couple of chuckles from the surrounding people.

We saw some beautiful waterfalls...

The first night we were in West Yellowstone, there was this glorious sunset. You can really tell why they call this Big Sky Country!

Yellowstone is an amazing place! I'm so glad that it's a National Park so it will always be protected! I'm going to finish this LONG blog with a couple of pictures. One is of the beauty that its Yellowstone. The other one is the beauty that is The Lintons!

More on our road trip next time!