Finally we went to W. Yellowstone

We said at the beginning of summer we were going to explore our backyard as our vacation. Well with everything we wanted to do we only accomplished a couple things on the list. And seeing Old Faithful was among the many things we wanted to see.

So this past weekend was the last FREE weekend in the park so we decided or more I decided no matter what we were going up there and checking things out rather then sitting and working on that damn building like we've done all summer (or at least it seems that way to me).

So Saturday at noon I convinced the kids to pack up the truck and head out. We made a few stops on the way knowing we weren't in any hurry to get there because we had the whole weekend ahead of us.

As we drove through Island Park and West Yellowstone town I told the boys about some of the animals we could see in the park, Bears , elk, deer, etc. They were extremely interested in the bears not that they wanted to run into any, but they wanted to see them from afar. As we drove I would tease them about seeing a bear out the window , one time there was a dog out far from the road ,with it's owner of course, I said hey look boys there's a bear running towards that guy. Dustin replies with, oh it's so cute then as he processed the situation and took another look he realized what it really was, he didn't think I was very funny for teasing him so much, but it was worth the laugh we got from him.

As we arrived at old faithful we realized we weren't the only ones who decided old faithful was a good idea since it was free. After driving around for 20 minutes trying to find a place to park , Daniel finally maneuvered the beast into a spot and we headed up to the over look to watch Old faithful erupt. We actually made it in time to see her erupt within 10 minutes of finding a place to sit down.

The kids were in aw.

When she was done with her show we hiked around to see all the other hot pools and geysers. It was astounding to see all the beauty in the park.





This little guy was wanting some food and wasn't afraid of us at all...kinda funny.

After taking a short hike and freezing our butts off ( it was 45 there). We decided to head for some grub. Dustin insists he has to eat 3 balanced meals a day and they can't be late. Ha ha.

We drove back to Yellowstone town and on the way saw a few beautiful places to pull off the road and take some pictures the beauty in the park has to be captured as far as I'm concerned. We also saw a few elk grazing in the long grass by the river. After making a few stops and getting snowed on , Yes I said SNOWED, we made it in time to eat dinner. The food was something to be desired but we won't post anything negative.

After dinner we made the drive back home. We decided on the way to check out Mesa Falls. Daniel and I never realized how close it is to home. It was so beautiful we couldn't believe we hadn't been there sooner. We will be revisiting though because we only seen the upper falls and not the lower, because the sun had went down while we were checking out the upper falls and we decided it would be safer to make that trip in the day light being as there are bears in that country.

In all it was a wonderful trip and so nice to be out as a family, we will be exploring more of our backyard because although we knew we lived in a beautiful place we didn't realize how beautiful it really was.