Yellowstone

While we were at the Miner Family Reunion this summer, we planned a trip with my sister, Becky, and her family. Our kids were getting along so well at the reunion that we thought it would be fun to give them some more time together. We decided to meet up during our Fall Breaks. They had never been to Yellowstone, so we decided to meet up there. It was the beginning of July at the time that we planned the trip and super hot outside. We didn't think about the fact that it would be freezing in Yellowstone in the middle of October. We bundled up and made the most of it.
We stayed in Teton Village, which was about an hour drive from the south entrance of Yellowstone. Since it was the Knudsen's first time there, we decided that Old Faithful was a must see. While driving into the park, we checked online to see when the next predicted eruption of Old Faithful would be. We knew that if we headed straight there, we would be cutting it close, but we went anyways. The prediction gives a time and then says that Old Faithful will erupt within 20 minutes surrounding that time. As we were driving there, we decided that we would make it as long as Old Faithful wasn't early this time. We pulled into the lot and put on our coats and headed over there only to find that we missed the eruption by 5 minutes. Old Faithful had been 8 minutes early this time around. It was such a disappointment and totally threw off our whole day. Because now, we had to hang around Old Faithful for and hour and a half to wait for the next eruption. And did I mention it was freezing outside plus a lot of the tourist buildings were closed for the season. We did manage to find open restrooms, which we all used, and an open gift shop. We went inside, only to warm up a bit. These hats were cute

We also wandered over to the visitor center for a bit, also to keep warm. About 20 minutes before the next predicted eruption, we headed out to the ring of benches.

We got some pretty decent seats and even got to see another geyser erupt a little ways off in the distance while we were waiting for Old Faithful. That was cool.

After Old Faithful, we ate lunch in the car as we drove around the lower loop of the park. We stopped at this really colorful hot pool because it was one that our family had never seen. The walkways were icy and the kids had fun kicking around chunks of ice. The colorful pool was not visible at all because of wind and steam, but this other pool off to the side of it gave us a little taste of what it probably looked like.

Our family decided that the second "must see" of Yellowstone was the Canyon area. The canyon views are beautiful and there are a couple of impressive waterfalls.

(I dropped my phone without realizing it right after this picture was taken. Fortunately, an honest couple found it, caught up to us and returned it to me. I felt like I dodged a bullet with that one). We hiked down to view the lower falls, as well. Unfortunately, Becky fell on the ice on the hike down and hurt herself a bit so she and Jake didn't make it down to the bottom. The rest of us did. There was a couple down there that came from California. They were so impressed by all of our kids that were able to hike down the icy walkways. We told them that we were from Utah and Colorado, so the kids were used to walking on ice. The hardest part of the hike was having to climb back up 3 hundred and something stairs. The kids did great, though. Even Tyler and Camden climbed all the way back up on their own.

We saw a few other stops along the way, too, but some of the stops were just convenient places to get out, stretch our legs, and use the restrooms.

The wildlife didn't disappoint, either. We saw a lot of bison and deer. There was one spot where a bunch of people were gathered and taking pictures of a big owl up in a tree. Our car didn't see the owl because we were looking on the ground, but Becky and Jake's car did see it and they said it was pretty cool. We saw these two elk right across the road from us when we stopped to use the restroom.

It was a super long day, but we had fun. The kids loved all of the snow on the ground and had fun throwing snowballs at each other, sliding around on the ice, and just spending time with their cousins.