Mommy and Me Academy: June 2011

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Yellowstone Trip Day 4

Our plan for the day was to get to the Artist's Point along the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone by 945 am today. I had read that there is an awesome rainbow that appears at the base of the falls at precisely 945 and lasts till 955. They were right!!! At 10 there was a Junior Ranger program about squirrels, and it was interesting to hear about the different types of squirrels that live in the park. We did a bit of hiking along the canyon, and the most exciting was the "Brink of the Lower Falls". It was a hard hike, but worth it. We went to the visitor center and watched a short movie, enjoyed the exhibits, then had a picnic lunch.
Along the drive from Canyon to Yellowstone Lake, we stopped at Sulphur Canyon and Mud Volcano. There were some really neat things to see and hear here.

Yellowstone Trip Day 3

Happy First Day of Summer!!

We decided to head south from Madison Junction towards Old Faithful. We took Firehole Canyon Drive and saw that the river is really high here, so the hot springs are closed (the swimming ones). After that we drove to Fountain Paint Pots and enjoyed seeing the bubbling and plopping. I took tons of pictures of the mud bubbling and we got soaked by Clepsydra Geyser. Once we got to the Upper Geyser Basin, we were just in time to see Old Faithful erupting. We walked the long trail to Morning Glory Pool and got to see lots of geysers and hot springs along the way. Anemone Geyser was really neat, we got to see the pool empty and then fill and erupt, all within 30 seconds or so.

After our long, nearly 4 miles of walking, we stopped for ice cream at the Old Faithful Lodge. We watched Old Faithful erupt one more time before going to the visitor center to watch their movie and see the exhibits.

On our drive back to camp we stopped along the Firehole Lake Drive and enjoyed seeing the geysers and hot springs. Back at camp we had dinner and then went swimming!