Thursday, June 19 started off very interesting. During the night, both Emily and Becca woke up throwing up. Yeah getting sick on a trip is so fun! (not!.) Anyway we didn't know what to do. So we just hung out at the Wal-Mart parking lot for a while. We had originally planned to see some more of the sites at Cody like the Old West Trail Town but with sick kids, we decided not to. We needed more time in Cody but things happen. Finally we decided to just get in the truck, let the kids sleep it off, and head to our next stop, Yellowstone. We packed a barf bowl just in case.
We decided to camp just outside the east entrance to Yellowstone at a campground. The campground was really nice and we were pretty much to ourselves. The only bad thing was there were bears. Yeah. Everywhere you looked there were bear warning signs like the one above. We had to be extra careful not to leave anything that might have a scent outside including food, garbage, and even our cooking grill. We had to store our grill in the bear-proof boxes. It was so scary. I was afraid to let the kids go outside especially at night. Luckily we had no bear encounters. It would have been cool to see a bear in Yellowstone but not in our camp.
It snowed the day before we got to Yellowstone so it was pretty cold the first day. So if you are wondering what snow does in summer... it comes to Yellowstone:
After parking the trailers, we drove into Yellowstone. Along the road was this cool waterfall from a spring or runoff from snow. We spent two days in Yellowstone and enjoyed every minute. The first day we drove the Upper Loop and saw all of the cool sights. First was Yellowstone Lake:
As well as the stink pots at the Lake. Yellowstone had a distinct smell... Rotten eggs. Probably from all of the sulfur pots everywhere. The Yellowstone Lake is similar to Crater Lake in that it is a sunken volcano. The cone of the volcano is the island on the lake. Over the past few years, the island on Yellowstone Lake has been slowly rising and the temperature of the water has been rising as well. Scientist believe this is because the volcano is getting ready to blow again! Now they don't know when it will blow so it could be years and years down the road but still that is a scary thought! I cannot imagine the damage that will cause.
Of course being in Yellowstone, we saw a ton of wildlife. My favorite were the buffalo:
These two buffalo were right by the side of the road. I love how this buffalo is just scratching his head on the sign like he owns it. These are magnificent creatures.
We continued around the Upper Loop to some more stink pots. This is the Dragon Mouth, Mud Volcano, and Sulphur Caldron. These things were cool to see and it was so amazing to see the water bubbling up out of the holes. We smelled so good afterward too but I don't think the smell helped Emily at all. She was still feeling sick.
We drove to the Canyon Village and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and saw this amazing waterfall:
This is the Upper Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and it was so amazing.
We loved looking at the falls. It is crazy how nature has a way of capturing you. I could have just sat and stared at this waterfall for hours. As you can see, this also helped Emily perk up a bit. She was still not feeling well and wanted to ride in the wagon but she was doing much better than when we started the day.
Next we drove to the brink of these falls. This was also awesome but also a little scary. We were right above the waterfall and could see how fast the water was running over the falls. Call me a worrier but I just kept imagining me or one of the kids tripping, falling over the guardrails, and over the waterfall never to be seen again. Yeah it was giving me the creeps so we took a few pictures and left. On to more sights.
Next we drove to Mammoth Hot Springs near Yellowstone's north entrance. Here we saw a lot of elk:
In fact, as you can see, we came up close and personal with the elk. These elk were just chilling on the grass at the Mammoth Springs village. There were mamas and babies everywhere. Some of the tourists, wanting to get a good picture, got really close to the elk even coming between mamas and their babies! We were just waiting for the mama elk to charge them but luckily they didn't.
After checking out the elk, we walked up to the Mammoth Hot Spring. This was really cool to see too. I loved all of the different colors of the rocks. It was also interesting to learn how all of the different colors were formed.
It was getting late so we decided to head back to camp by way of Norris and then Fishing Bridge. We saw even more wildlife including buffalo, elk, and deer. We were still holding out hope for bear and wolf (just not in our camp).
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