Although, I guess, bison is considered more correct now... We finally made it up to Yellowstone! We were waiting for the summer crowds to die down, but we visited the most popular stops anyway, I think. The weather was awesome, and we had a good time. Next time, we'll hopefully do some of the lesser known hotspots and maybe put Owen on a leash...? :)
DAY 1
Aforementioned bison. (I had a delicious bison tenderloin for dinner that night. Is that wrong?)
Stinky Sulphur Cauldron
Our cabin at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel.
The hotel and Owen's favorite part of the hotel, the ramps:
Lake Yellowstone. (Side note: They were having a "natural fire" across the lake, which you can see in the upper right corner of this picture. Apparently, it was up to 1100 acres, and we could smell smoke at our cabin by the time we were packing up on Sunday morning. All of the signs said they had it under control, but I was kind of glad to be packing up when we did.)
Historic yellow tour bus or "guck!"
Chipmunk. They were everywhere. Love them!
Deer we nearly stumbled upon on our walk back to our cabin from dinner. It was surprisingly not startled by Owen's running and shouting. (We trained him to clear the forest of bears by being loud.)
DAY 2
Old Faithful. Owen was very gregarious and might have a future as a park greeter. The older crowd loved him! He stopped to wave and wait on several different groups on our way to the visitor's center.
Giddy with anticipation, waiting for Old Faithful to blow, which it did, right on time.
Hike to the top and view back down to the Old Faithful complex
Boardwalk through the Upper Geyser Basin
He fell asleep early on in the hike. So when he awoke in the middle of the boardwalks and was whining, we let him out to stretch his legs. Needless to say, the last part of the boardwalk became a very long and slow walk, sometimes in the wrong direction!
Not even sure he noticed all of the interesting colors, steam, and bubbles around him, since he was so absorbed in running his hand along these benches.
Morning Glory Pool. The bluer the water, the hotter it is. Stay out of this one!
We finally wrangled him into the backpack for the walk back to the car.
The inside of the Old Faithful Inn. Hard to make it out here, but it's all wood, curvy and straight. Reminded us of something out of Tolkien.
DAY 3
The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. Gorgeous. However, the out-and-back trail we selected basically followed the road, so we kept seeing the same people at the viewpoints because they were getting in and out of their cars. At the end, they got to get in their car and proceed on out, whereas we had to turn around and hike back to our car at the beginning. Oh well, lesson learned. The scenery was worth it!
Brink of the Lower Falls. Hard to tell, but this is a 308-foot waterfall. Powerful!
That's Owen just to the right of the crowd on the observation deck.
The view from the trail, looking back at the Lower Falls.
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