Today was our trip to Yellowstone National Park. It was a very abbreviated trip, as we did not get as close to the park as I wanted to yesterday, which meant that we had almost three hours of driving before we arrived. With both kids, we struggle to get on the road before 10:00am, so that meant it was lunch time when we got to the park. After grabbing a bite to eat, we took the boys up to see the rock formations around Mammoth Springs. I thought the rocks looked extremely cool, but the boys were unimpressed. Evan was more concerned about being able to walk along the boardwalk on his own, and spent a lot of time screaming when the grade was too steep and I had to carry him. 
Yellowstone is a huge park, with a handful of major places to go see, as well as numerous little side trails and camping spots. Almost all the little stuff was still closed, but we weren't able to do any of those trails with the kids anyway. After leaving Mammoth Springs, we drove for around 40 minutes to the Norris Geyser Basin, where we put the kids in their strollers and walked down the boardwalk for a bit. This area was very barren - white rocks, with the odd water pool, steam rising out of the ground and some small geysers and boiling water spots. Oh, and the entire area stunk like sulfur. The smell was a bit overpowering at times - if only the Internet could deliver smells so that you could all experience it. It was another interesting area that I wish we could have spent more time exploring, but it was getting late and the kids were quite unimpressed and Evan was cranky.
After that, we headed south to Old Faithful, another 40 minute drive (or so). Along the way, we stopped at Gibbon Falls, a fairly impressive waterfall, and the only thing that the kids liked. Xander was fascinated by it and Evan spent the entire time pointing at it and making exclamations (well the entire time that trucks were not driving by, as he would then point at the truck). As we made the trip through Yellowstone, I realized that I was a bit premature in my disappointment about seeing snow outside Swift Current. There is still a LOT of snow this high up in the mountains. The sides of the road and any area with some shade still have fairly large snow banks. In fact, the parking lot at Old Faithful is full of huge snow banks - and it was 23 degrees with no shade when we arrived!
We could not have timed our arrival more perfectly, as we arrived at 4:21pm and Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt at 4:36 (+/- 10 minutes). We found a place to sit, as there is a giant ring of benches around the geyser, and waited. It did not take long before the geyser started, but I missed most of the impressive beginning as I was trying to corral the kids so that Sandra could take a picture of them. Still, even the parts I saw were cool to see.
At the parking lot, Sandra took a picture of us by the snow, though I could not fathom why - it's not like we've never seen snow before. However, Xander wanted to take a picture of the two of us by the snow, which he did, so that is our official seventh anniversary picture.With that done, we drove out of Yellowstone National Park, dodged a number of buffalo on the road and stopped at McDonald's in West Yellowstone. There, we discovered that all of us were quite sunburnt. It was hot out, but the car temperature never went above 23 degrees in
Yellowstone - though it hit 28 in the lower areas outside the park. I guess 23 at 7000 feet is enough to give you a sunburn. The kids had hats on, so it is just their arms that are burnt, so hopefully it won't hurt them too bad.We then drove to Idaho Falls, where we stopped for the night, after an extremely long day of driving, sightseeing and even more driving - Evan barely made it through the last drive, as he was tired, but refused to go to sleep, or do anything other than screech at the top of his lungs. I really hope he gets through this phase (or learns to talk) soon, as I don't know how much longer I can put up with it.
We spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what to do next. I wanted to go to Infineon Raceway, but the race that is on while we are down here is next weekend (the 30th and 31st) and we could be in Sonoma by Thursday, so I decided there wasn't any point in going that far south. It looks like we are going to spend tomorrow exploring Idaho a bit and then the next day we will head down to Nevada and take I-80 across to Reno, before taking a bunch of non-interstates from Reno to Eureka.
3 comments:
if it makes you feel any better, i don't remember being particularly impressed by old faithful when i was a kid either, and i was much older than Xander and Evan. and i remember hating the sulfur smell.
I remember Old Faithful and the sulfur smell vividly and that was about 53 years ago!! I'm glad you are feeling better Jason. You do realize that Evan is almost two, so this may be his "terrible twos" phase. Good luck! Just keep loving him, Iknow it is hard to be patient! Great pics by the way!! Love ya
Tell Sandra that all that time driving in the car is the perfect time to write down all your dates and important info from your lives and then just email it all to me when you have a moment! :)
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