Yellowstone

Supposedly the tallest geiser in the world. It only gets its really big explosions once every 50 years and since it went off in 2005 we were a little late... or early. So here's one of it's smaller explosions...














Norris Falls. I haven't quite figured out why the "Falls" is in the name...





So here's Ben carrying Lily ALL THE WAY UP this little mountain to see the mud pots... He's such a good daddy! For some reason I keep thinking that this should be an EFY picture....


"Heather take a picture of Lily and me overlooking the valley." Nice overlooking.... :)














I felt a confusion of emotions. I was trying to figure out if I was in a Salvador Dali painting or on Tatooine.















More pretty water. OOOO AAAHHH...













One of the emerald colored ponds... and no that is not snow in the background.... it's something else that was everywhere!









My all-time favorite picture of the day.... the part with the boy standing on a geiser isn't so typical.... on the other hand the mom freaking out and the dad not noticing anything.... VERY TYPICAL. :) They had this on pretty much every sign in Yellowstone.


































Old Faithful is in the distance... you can see it steaming....





















Ben pushing Lily around the geisers...












Me and my buffalo. I've always been a sucker for cute little fuzzy animals but I have that same feeling for buffalo apparently. I was so excited to see such a big herd of them!!!












Ben in front of all of the steam of one of the smaller geisers...

So I got this picture about 15 minutes into the park and I got really excited about seeing a buffalo so close to the road. So, of course I got out of the car and started chasing it (of course thinking that the people who are just trying to get a picture out of their car windows are out of their minds!!!) trying to get close enough for a decent picture. So I was probably about 15 feet away, snapped a picture, went back to the car and thought, "That was stupid. They say that the buffalo kill more people than bears in Yellowstone.... whoops." Anyway later we got to talking to some lady in the park and she was talking about how she saw a couple of stupid people running after some buffalo... I just nodded and said, "Yep. Stupid people."
















Pretty stream right by Old Faithful...















I never knew that bacteria could be so pretty.

Overall Yellowstone was an amazing experience and everyone should go at least once. Ben and I plan on taking our kids there when they're old enough to appreciate its beauty. One of the things that really shocked me about Yellowstone is that you don't just go to look at things. I noticed that you get to hear a lot of amazing sounds and smell some really cool things (and more often than not, some really uncool things). It was a great trip and I'm a little bummed that I haven't been there before because it's only an hour and a half away from Rexburg! Lily was amazing as usual.... well....... I guess I should say she was amazing in Yellowstone.... not so much in the car...... but she went to bed at her regular bedtime and slept through the night so I'm glad this little trip didn't throw off her schedule. We truly have been blessed.