Yellowstone Day 2

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Day two at Yellowstone was super jam-packed with activities again.  We started out with the Artists' Paint Pots and ended the day with the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  We drove the upper loop this day and made stops along the way and took a couple of longer hikes to see some of the sights.  It was awesome!!  Once again we didn't leave the park until late again - but not quite as late as the night before.  So we waited until we got back to the cabin to eat dinner.  Day two was much hotter and there were hardly any clouds in the sky so we made sure to lather up really good with the sunscreen.  The temperatures got up into the 80s and it was pretty toasty under the sun.

Partway through the day on Day one I noticed that my ears were hurting when I wore my sunglasses.  I thought that it was just because the sunglasses were new and that I just hadn't adjusted to wearing them yet.  Well, the next morning I looked in the mirror and realized why my ears had been hurting - they were sunburned!  That is why for Day two I wore my black hat with the brim around it to protect my ears - and I couldn't wear my sunglasses the whole day because it hurt my ears too much.

I'm really glad that we were able to make the trip this year and that we were able to share the experience with DH's siblings and their families.  We had a great time and have already talked about going back so that we can experience more of it and maybe take a few more days so that we don't have to feel so rushed.

Walking to the artists' paint pots.

Goofing off with the cousins.  (They were walking backwards down the trail.)

Artist's Paint Pots - This was one of the coolest things to watch, but pictures just don't do it justice at all.  I'll have to see if I can get some of the video up on the blog to view.  The kids could have spent hours watching this!  It wasn't on our original set of plans for the day but I'm glad that we found out where they were and went to see them!

Some of the colorful pools at the artist's paint pots.

Family pictures at Norris Geyser Basin

Cousin pictures after we finished walking around the Norris Geyser Basin.  There are only two of them that are not in the pictures.

Here is one of the two cousins that were not in the pictures above.

We were lucky enough to see some bears on this trip!  On the first day we saw a brown speck way off in the distance that we were told was a grizzly bear, but it was too far away to really see well.  On this day we saw a mother black bear with two cubs!!  They were right next to the road.  One of the cubs was climbing a small tree/branch that wasn't very tall and when he got to the top of it, the tree broke and he fell to the ground.  It was awesome!!  If you look closely in the picture above, you can see both of the cubs.  In the picture below is the mother - right in the middle of the picture - and one of the cubs is up to the left next to the tree trunk.  In the few times I have been to Yellowstone, this is the first time I think I have ever seen a bear.

Ice cream break!  We stopped for some ice cream during the heat of the afternoon.

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

We took a hike down to the top of the lower falls.  This is a shot of the waterfall from the top of the overlook.  It was a pretty steep trail with lots of switchbacks.

Family picture at the top of the lower falls.

The lower falls of the Yellowstone River.  This is the waterfall that we hiked down to the top of.

I'm not sure if these are elk or deer (although I was just reading that elk are just a subspecies of deer).  Since we were bringing up the rear of our caravan of 3 cars, DH got frustrated at times that we seemed to miss out on some of the wildlife shots as the cars in front of us are trying to take pictures.  After we finished our hike to the top of the lower falls, I took a turn driving so that DH could have a break and take some pictures if he wanted.  We stopped when we saw these deer (elk) running off in the distance, but we were not in a good position to get a good picture.  So I decided to drive up and around the cars in front of us (since no one was coming the other direction), and the deer happened to turn and cross the road right in front of our car.  DH was quite surprised that I did that and kept shaking his head in disbelief.  :)  We were laughing and talking about it for quite some time.  :)

M&M took this picture from the back seat of the van.  I let the kids practice taking some pictures with our point-and-shoot cameras.  She thought that it was funny that you could see me in the rear view mirror.

Bald eagle that we saw before leaving the park that evening.

This is a picture of the hats that our sister-in-law had made in Indonesia before they came to the states.  They were great and we had a LOT of people stop and ask us what the 'N' stood for.  People were amazed that we had these specially made for a family reunion.