We finally made it to beautiful Yellowstone National Park, and so far we have not bee disappointed. Today was a dat of waterfalls - water going down.
Luke slept with me last night, and though he had is own sleeping bags, it wasn't long before he was sharing mine with me. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well last night. It was a chilly night, I couldn't find my socks, and me feet were cold. I hope it will be better tonight.
This morning we all slept in late. Well Luke woke me up early, but it was too cold I didn't get out of bed for a long time. When we finally did get up, we had to hurry to break camp and check out of the site and move to another by 10 am. We did,barely, by putting up the tent and shoving everything else, all of it, into the car or on top, wherever it could go for the short ride to our new campsite. I am so glad we moved because our new site is much nicer. It is not too near other campers, and right next to the bathroom. There are two flat placed for our tents, and has a food locker to keep our food away from the bears. We are pleased.
We got our camp all set up, then I changed my clothes, and then we had to pack everything into our car that a bear might find smelled tasty. We thought we had a done a good job, but tonight when we came home from our adventures, we had a note at our campsite from the ranger stating that we had left a bunch of stuff out the wasn't as harmless as we had thought including a clean dutch oven, a brand new tablecloth and a water container that has never had water in it.. So tonight we have to be extra careful to put all that stuff in the car. Darn bears. What a pain!
After setting up camp, we first went to the Canyon Village right near our campground. We hit a few gift shops where we found the usual pressed penny machines, pins, patches, a fun hat for Caleb, and other souvenirs and other essentials we were in need of. Then we went to the Visitor Information Center, a museum of sorts, where we signed the kids up for the Junior Ranger program, and looked at the displays about volcanoes and Yellowstone,etc. Luke fell asleep in my arms, and was dead weight, very hard for me to lug around, but at least I wasn't chasing hm. We saw a introductory movie about Yellowstone, which included footage of a girl getting gored by a buffalo. Scary! We got the point, I hope.
After the hike, we headed north on the great loop road, Almost immediately we saw a bunch of cars pulled over to the side of the road, and many others slowing way, way down. A couple a great big elk were right near the roadway. I grabbed my camera and jumped out. I got a few great shots of a big elk with a large rack of antlers. So cool!
We decided to head north around the great loop around Yellowstone just to see what we could see. he first place we stopped was Tower falls, a tall narrow waterfall that fell down among spike tall rocks that seemed to jut up from the river below. It was pretty, but I found myself more fascinated buy the cliff above it, where one layer of exposed rock was so interesting. It was a perfectly straight row of cylindrical rocks, side by side, all along the cliff face. It looked like the cliff wall had been fluted or crimped. Amazing.
We worked our way north, around the top part of the great loop. The scenery was amazing. We were in a forest of tall lodge pole pines, then we turned the corner and were riding along the edge of a huge grassy plain, surrounded by tall rocky cliffs., a winding river slicing between tall cliffs or a gently sloping wide valley that had been carves by a glacier long ago - huge round boulders that had been carried to the smooth valley floor by the massive glacier. We kept our eyes peeled for animals, the bison especially, but we never saw anything.
Derek and Dylan in front of an ancient cone formed from the mineral deposits from a hot spring.
We drove to Mammoth Springs, near the Northern border of the park. What we saw there was completely unearthly! Before we saw anything, we were accosted with the smell of sulfur. It smelled like scrambled eggs. The Mammoth Springs a huge terraced hillside that was white as snow. There was water flowing down the stair-stepped sides. It was orange where the water ran, but the dry parts were bone white. There were terraced steps, and along the top were bulbous mounds. It reminded me of the planet Krypton from the old Superman movie. It was just strange. It looked like an icy snow cliff but steamed like fire. Really wild.
We drove up to the top of the springs, and the view from the top was equally un-earthly. The water bobbled up from somewhere deep in the earth, and was a strange, unnatural green color. But there were lots of colors. There was bright orange, pink, and blue. We walked along the board walk just a few feet above the bubbling water, and we could feel the heat emanating from it. From above we could see the opalescent water, as it fell from terrace to terrace, so slowly that each level looked like a mirror. With the sun so low in the sky the different mirrored terraces looked like polished silver, copper, and gold. I was truly amazed at the strange beauty of it.
From Mammoth springs we headed south. More breathtaking scenery. We passed black glassy obsidian cliffs, and off in the distance we spotted a huge herd of Elk, gracefully grazing in a long meadow at the base of tall forested mountains. Some younger elk were playing and romping while the bigger elk ignored them, and us. It was cool. A little while later we saw something dart out in front of the car in front of us. It was a coyote but when Denis tried to take a picture of him ( he was looking right at us, just feet away) the camera wasn't turned on, and by the time Dennis realized it, the coyote had gone behind a tree. Dennis made a U turn to go back to catch another glimpse, and as we did, the coyote crossed the street, and began trotting down the side of the road right toward us. It was so cool! We got our pictures after all.
There we also made a quick visit to Dennis' lovely cousin Melissa and her great husband Jack. They were so sweet to invite our whole crew into their darling little apartment there is Rexberg. We miss them and it was so fun to stop over for a bit before our final leg to Yellowstone National Park.
Here are just a few of the many items we stamped at convention. The Make and Takes are so much fun, and even better because they gave us 3 great stamp sets to use and keep. The 
Dad shows Dylan a few things at the pool table in Marlynn's basement.
The boys spent a night outside in the playhouse with their 
Derek and Annabell play a duet.
Luke wasn't sure what to think about Lizzie, 
The boys spent some time at the community pool where Marlynn works.
Mom and I meet our guys at Temple Square where we toured the Tabernacle and visitor centers.
Look at how cute my mom and dad are. They are so in love after all these years, and they can't keep their hands off each other. I hope Dennis and I will do more of that when we don't have six other sets of hands between us.
Dylan takes a 
