We got up early Friday morning and made the 2 hour drive to Yellowstone.  Greg and I followed Darin and his family up there.  The drive up there wasn’t too bad and we made good time.  Right after entering the park we saw a herd of elk.  None of us were that impressed as we’ve all seen elk a lot!  So we drove on past.  Our first stop was at a geyser.  When I was a teen at Yellowstone one of the only things I remember is how smelly it was.  Stopping at the geyser was the kids first experience of that.  It is stinky but man is it amazing to see.

After that first stop we saw some big puffs of steam where large geysers were so we headed that way.  There were some really beautiful geysers but the bigger geysers meant the stronger the stench.

We drove around the park a bit just stopping at geysers and other interesting landscapes.  By this point the clouds had started to roll in and it was getting a bit windy and chilly.  We were not prepared at all.  We thought it would be really warm just like back in Boise so we had zero jackets or warm clothes.  We decided to stay in the park though and just suffer through the cold.  Jaelee was able to borrow a Jacket from Kenzie but the rest of us were left exposed.  I am so glad we stayed though because it was worth it!

After driving for a bit we stopped in the center where some shops are.  We looked around them for about an hour while waiting for the Old Faithful.  By this time it was raining and even colder but we all agreed we still wanted to stay.  Mya found an emergency foil blanket that she wore to Old Faithful.  It was a shame that the clouds were there during Old Faithful because there wasn’t much contrast between it and the clouds but it is still something amazing to see.

After Old Faithful we continued to drive around.  We had yet to see an animal besides the elk we first saw.  We saw a few more neat geysers.  The dragon’s mouth was my favorite.  It was in a cave that was really colorful from all the greenness around it.  It was probably the smellest one of all though!  After that geyser we finally found buffalo.  It is so neat seeing those huge animals.  Some of the kids were scared to get out of the vehicles are first but came around.

After seeing buffalo we were all pretty happy.  We decided on one more stop.  We went to this huge waterfall and hiked down to this platform to get a really good view of it.  The hike was bit scary as the path was quit narrow and slippery because of the rain but we all made it.  It was rough getting back up and towards the end Greg had to drag me back up LOL.  At the same stop there was  huge elk just laying in the grass.  There was a fish and game officer there and he said that the animals are so used to the people that we could get pretty close and he wouldn’t move. It was pretty neat.

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We decided it was time to head back. We had  2 hour drive ahead of us to get back.  We ate dinner at a McDonalds outside of the park on our way home.  It started to get dark soon after and their was a beautiful sunset.  We didn’t get to stop for it so I took pictures of it while we drove.  That was day 1….day 2 continued tomorrow.