Yellowstone 2016

I didn't plan on taking many pictures of our trip this year. We have too many pictures of Yellowstone. So just a few of the kids and things.  :D

We stayed over night in Rexburg, the day before our trip so we could get to the park early in the morning and see all that we could see.
A few minutes after entering into the park, we saw some Buffalo. I was excited for Emmie to see them, I said, Look Emmie! Those are buffalo!" She struggled to see out her window because of all the stuff we had piled on the seat. We all took turns pointing out the buffalo to her. Then we came to a herd that was closer to the car, that she would be able to see clearly. Barry pulled the car over to the side of the road and as soon as they came into Emmie's view, she exclaimed.
"Oh Bison! Mom! There are Bison!!!
We all laughed! I guess we have Wild Krats, her favorite show, to thank for that. At some point there was an episode on Bison. She continued to call them Bison for the rest of the trip. Clever girl!

 Fire Hole Drive. Such an awesome waterfall!

 The one picture of ME. To prove that I Was there!

eating snacks. Sorry, I just have to take a profile shot of my husband each year at yellowstone. It's tradition. He bought a new hat, just for the trip.

 Tired Little Bear


Stopping for lunch. We brought tortillas from the Mexican bakery, instead of bread, to reduce the crumbs everywhere. Other than our lettuce and cheese freezing, it was great!

 okay ....maybe not so great. Who wants frozen lettuce on their sandwich? ...NOT Ellie.

 These pictures are in no particular order.

 This is the ONE picture, I have of a bear. Haha! It's that large dark brown things in the grass in the middle of the picture. It was sleeping in the sun. It was a huge grizzly bear. The rangers were there and made sure nobody got too close. I didn't even think to take a picture of the other bear we saw. It ran right by our car  on a ledge and I was a little concerned it was going to jump off the ledge on top of us. It was very frightened of a crowd of people down the road and was trying to get away,

 We finally made it to see the Dragon Mouth Cave. We've been trying to see it for years, but it was closed off for construction. IT's a pretty awesome cave, that has steam and boiling water coming out of it. There is also a roaring noise. I'm pretty convinced there IS a Dragon in there!

 Emmie thought the Dragon was stinky!

 This is Hayden Valley, in Yellowstone.  It is one of my favorite places in the park, it is just soo beautiful. We have often seen wolves and bears here. Not this time. It was very rainy.

 YELLOWstone!

 I think they are getting better at posing. :)

 On the second morning, we saw a herd of buffalo with their young. They came right up on the road and surrounded our car.

 It made me quite nervous.

 So I took some pictures ....because we were stuck.
 Then those buffalo got a bit too close. Two male buffalo were horsing around and one bashed into our car and dented it, and knocked our side mirror off. Barry had his window down, it was quite intense for a few minutes until they moved on. ....Then I let Barry get out and pick up our mirror. I guess that's another car insurance claim. Last time rodent damage, this time Buffalo damage. :D
 Afterwards, Emmie would say
Mom! Mom! That Bison hit our car.  I would say, Yes Emma, that's right. Naughty Bison. Then she would move on to telling someone else. James! James! That Bison hit our car........until she had told everyone in the car. Multiple times. I guess it might quite the impression ...not just on our car. ;)

 Top of Mount Washburn. We haven't been able to come up this road for years. It has always been closed due to snow. It was breathtaking. Ellie said, "that is a lot of view!"

 Some lovely Elk crossed the road in front of us.

 .....then stopped and posed so I could take a picture. Soo nice.

 A lone prong horn. We saw  lots of antelope this year, but they were always off in the distance.

 I have a picture of Ellie running down that little path when she was Emma's age. In the background are Barronette Cliffs. We spotted mountain goats up on the cliffs. Grandpa Pate would always bring us to the this spot to  see the goats, .....and I always pretended that I could see them. This time I really did! ...and so did most of the kids. They look like tiny white specks without the binoculars.

...............but with them they look like THIS! "Oh Hello!"  Super zoom lens. ;)

Yep! Totally snagged that picture off the internet.

 Barry fed the remainder of his apple core to a ground squirrel, It sat by our car and ate it. Just a side note, I didn't see a single sign that said, "Don't feed the animals."

 Emma woke up from a nap and requested to see a deer. Daddy told her we would find one for her. Not 10 mins later we spotted one quite close to the car. Emma was very pleased.

 Ellie being a good big sister. Keeping Emma from climbing the wall, that clearly states "Keep Off!"

 One of the only sections of Mammoth Hot Springs that is still alive.

 We climbed A LOT of stair at this place. Emma insisted on not being carried. I was thinking about insisting TO BE carried! I am seriously out of shape!

 Mammoth rock. I take a picture of Ellie by this rock every year.

 We were walking across the parking lot to see some geysers at a basin, and an Indian couple pulled their car over and called to us. They said that a grizzly bear had been in the area not 10 mins ago, so keep a close eye on our children. We thanked them ....and Barry left us and ran back to the car to get his binoculars. ;)

 This is the area the grizzly bear was spotted in. Don't worry, i'm sure that fence will protect them from it. :)
The interesting thing about this is that we had pulled into the parking lot a few minutes early, but sadly there was no bathrooms(a must, for a pregnant lady), so we turned around and drove down the road a bit, found some bathrooms and came back. In that amount of time we missed all the bear excitement. So we spent some time scanning the trees for the missing bear.....

 until I spotted something in the trees .......and my blood ran cold.

 a white ghost wolf!

Okay, okay, it's only a coyote.(wolves are more the size of donkeys) But, I seriously thought it was a wolf for a second, and I was already on edge to grab a kid and run(waddle fast) if any bear should pop it's head out.

 That crazy coyote came right in front of us and walked by. I told the kids to look tall. It had a marmot in it's mouth, I'm sure it was taking home to it's cubs.

 After that, the skies began to look pretty ominous. So we hurried along, trying not to get caught in another downpour or hail storm.

This geysers was going off, we we arrived, but when we got over to it and I tried to take Ellie's picture it stopped. So we looked at all the other geysers and came back to it, As soon as I tried taking her picture again, it stopped. She thought this was soo funny. Luckily, it started up again as she walked away, so I had her run back over. :)

 This place is called Black Sands Geyser
Basin, it's pretty awesome, and not too long of a walk.

and that's the end of the pictures. I started feeling horrible, and then even worse.  So we cut our trip a day short and came home.


..........and that's all folks, until next time. :D