Yellowstone: Day 2

We stayed in West Yellowstone which is by the west entrance.  Logan was quite reluctant to go into the forest. The kids were given a sheet of paper with the different animals that they may see on it to use as a checklist.  After he got the checklist he started chanting, "Find a duck, find a duck."  The checklist only held his interest for half a day.  Mackenzie got an activity booklet to work on a Junior Ranger patch.  On our first full day we headed out towards Canyon to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  Before we even reached Madison we saw our first wild animals.  Some deer grazing in the meadow.  They were quite far away, but being the first animal sighting we were excited.  

Then we saw our first bison.  That was a bit more entertaining.

There was a short hike between Madison and Norris called Artist Paint Pots.   We got to see some hot springs, 

and mud pots.  

Right as we were turning to head toward a picnic spot near the canyon the road was blocked by a slow moving herd of bison.  There were a few babies in the herd and the bison were beginning to get quite annoyed at all of the cars.

We ate a beautiful spot and it was very quiet.  As we were leaving the crowds showed up so we had perfect timing. 

Leaving the picnic spot saw a bison napping.

The canyon has two big waterfalls.  This is Lower Falls which is 308 feet high, taller than Niagara Falls but without the volume of water.

Robert kept Logan on his shoulders as it was a long way down and very short rocks keeping us.  

I went to take Mackenzie's picture and she decided to strike a pose in front of the waterfall.  Several people laughed and she continued to pose the whole trip.

The view just got prettier the higher we climbed.

We left Lower Falls to head to Upper Falls, saw a few couple of elk along the way.  They had some enormous antlers!

I call this picture,  "Daddy has the camera while Mommy was in the bathroom."

Upper Falls is not a high as Lower Falls, only 109 feet.

Mackenzie's Junior Ranger book had a page about the canyons that had her write a poem about the canyon.  It asked for words that describe what she saw, heard, and described the canyon.  Here is her poem:

Trees, sand, river, grass

Blue, brown, white

Waterfall, shshshsh

Awesome

She had me read her poem several time over the next couple of days.  She was quite proud of herself.  After the canyon we headed North to see the Mammoth Hot Springs.  Along the way we were quite lucky to see a black bear cub!  The ranger directing traffic said there was a mom and two cubs but we just saw this little guy. 

He was digging around in the grass so it was hard to get a good picture of him.  

At Mammoth Hot Springs we saw Liberty Cap which is a dormant hot spring.

This a Palette Spring, we are standing at the bottom of it.

There was water running down it and some steam coming off of the top.

You could take the long walkway to see more but I wasn't up for it and the kids were hot and tired by this point so we headed back to West Yellowstone.

On the way out saw a big herd of elk, there were some babies in this herd as well..

Made it back to the hotel later than we would have liked due to construction traffic but had dinner, bathed, and got to bed to get up early the next day!