I need to hit him one more time...

We left the rodeo ambience of Cody, WY in the distance as we headed toward the East entrance of Yellowstone National Park on Monday morning. I was glad to be heading back into the peace and tranquility of a national park, and especially eager to see Yellowstone again. I visited once when I was a child - maybe 11 - on a trip similar to the one we are on. My parents took my sister and I on a four-week road trip from Houston, TX to Missoula, MT with our pop-up camper. I don't remember much, but I do remember seeing Old Faithful, wildlife, and big mountains. This time, I was eager to explore deeper - to remember more and to share those experiences with Matt, and with Abby and Isaac.

We stopped at the Buffalo Bill dam just outside of Cody to see what was the tallest dam in the world when it was built - it was also the model for the Hoover Dam. Something about the Wapiti Forest Service information center along the way in also called us to stop. As it turns out, it must have been the voice of the friendly Forest Service Ranger who was talking about grizzly bears and showed us the pelt of one - even having us hold it up for a photo opportunity. I guess it was a good educational opportunity, but the whole thing was just a bit strange...

Shortly after entering the park, what should we see but more snow! We knew that Yellowstone had gotten snow in the last couple of days, but there was more than two feet in some places we drove through. We pulled out by Sylvan Lake to let the kids check it out. They spent maybe 5-10 minutes throwing snowballs at each other when I asked if we were ready to move on. Abby said, "Not yet...I need to hit him one more time!" When else can a sister get away with saying that about her brother? We couldn't resist just one more round...

Once we were set up in the campground, we were eager to explore! Trying to decide what to do first in Yellowstone is a bit like trying to pick which ride to run to first at Disney World for Mickey fans...it's a bit overwhelming. So, we decided to start with the standby, Old Faithful. Our timing was perfect as we arrived and had just enough time to get information on the Junior Ranger and Junior Scientist programs before the big show. It was a great way to introduce the kids to the world of geothermal features.

The remainder of the afternoon into evening was spent wandering around the Upper Geyser Basin checking out all of the geysers and hot springs as Abby and Isaac both completed their Junior Scientist programs. It was really pretty cool - they got to check out a backpack that had lots of tools in it to use around the geysers like a heat gun (to aim at the geothermal features and see how hot the water was - the hottest reading we got was about 152 degrees). They had to form a hypothesis about whether or not the geysers are alive and then work their way through discovering whether their hypothesis was right or wrong... By the way, they both thought that geysers are alive when they started out, but quickly found out otherwise. Very cool! Old Faithful was amazing, but my favorite feature of the day was Morning Glory Pool - it looked like an underwater rainbow...beautiful!

 Tracy