Our first day in Yellowstone was beautiful! We entered the park and drove to Old Faithful to meet up with the cousins! It was a pretty & slightly foggy drive, with the sun breaking through more every minute. We saw a pronghorn in a field, but made no stops so that we could be on time to Old Faithful to find the cousins.
We met them a few minutes before 9:00 and there was much hugging and many smiles! We went into the Old Faithful Inn for a bit before settling down on the benches to wait for Old Faithful to erupt.
Then we took a walk on the boardwalks around the Old Faithful geyser basin and saw lots of cool thermal features and spent lots of time chatting and goofing around with family.
Yes, it really is that blue. I just want to swim in there, except that I listened to the Rangers and I know that I would be burned by both the heat and the bacteria living in there.
Sweet nieces.
I love that picture of the youngest from each family. They were so sweet together!
No trip to the Old Faithful Inn is complete without ice cream!
After Old Faithful we headed to the Midway Geyser Basin to see the Grand Prismatic. I had never heard of the Grand Prismatic, and since we have been home, we have found out that a lot of people have never heard of the Grand Prismatic. This is only strange because the Grand Prismatic is the largest and most photographed thermal feature in Yellowstone! It’s incredible! Now I wasn’t super excited personally to go to the Midway Geyser Basin because thermal features get kind of boring to me after a while and there are A LOT of thermal features in Yellowstone! But the Grand Prismatic is a class all its own. Amazing! (Dee, make sure John see these pictures…apparently he has never heard of the Grand Prismatic either!)
On the way to the boardwalk to see Grand Prismatic.
This shot reminds me of the opening of Little House on the Prairie…just need some pioneer dresses & bonnets.
And now…the pictures of The Grand Prismatic!
No joke. No editing on these pictures.
It’s huge! The pictures below were taken on my iPhone camera:
After walking around the Midway Geyser Basin (there are other thermal features there…I just don’t have pictures of them because they pale in comparison to the Grand Prismatic) we had our picnic lunch on this river bank.
After lunch we headed towards Fishing Bridge Campground where the cousins had their RV’s. The kids’ played for hours in their woods building a “cabin.”
Oh, and this bison crossed in front of us on the road. This was the closest we got to a bison. We actually did NOT see very many bison on this trip…or much wildlife at all, in fact.
An elk back in the trees…
That is the cabin they built! Apparently portions of the structure were already in place and the Ball kids finished the job!
Complete with a stone floor and fireplace!
Made by these two lovely peas in a pod!
Showing the adults what they had done…the dads had to check out its safety, of course.
In process…
Oldest and youngest sweeties.
After a delicious dinner made by my SIL, we headed back to our condo. It was about a 90 minute drive. There was some stopping for bison, but not much, which is just the way I like it!
2 comments:
The Grand Prismatic - very cool. Thanks for broadening my world - it will have to be part of the Hiemstras next Yellowstone trip.
Awesome pictures! I have no idea how we missed the Grand Prismatic?! I am very, very happy you did not get trampled by bison.
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