2nd full day in Yellowstone

After going to bed to a light snow fall, we woke up to sunny skies on Saturday. We slathered on the 50 proof sunscreen and headed off for a day of fun. We had lunch on the road and this time I remembered the propane stove so we could actually cook it! (I'd packed everything but the stove on Thursday so lunch that day was a bit of a make shift affair.)

Our second full day in Yellowstone, we drove the scenic upper loop of the park. Our first stop was Mammoth Hot Springs where we viewed the hot springs and got ice cream.

Mammoth hot springs

ice cream before lunch
Driving through the high mountain meadows of this area, it was amazing that I was in a car and not on foot. I'm sure we appreciate the beauty less when we can see it from a car but we sure did enjoy it. I was sure wishing I'd remembered my MP3 player so I could have some beautiful music to go with the scenery.

view from the road

I felt like singing songs from The Sound of Music

Tower Falls

I had to keep telling the kids to put down the DVD player and enjoy the view. They're happy to look out the window for 10 seconds and get back to the movie. While on our drive between Mammoth and Tower, we came upon a wildlife jam. We slowed and eventually stopped when we saw it was a bear. One of Anastaya's wishes this trip was to see a bear in the park. I'd warned her that bears are difficult to spot. She was thrilled to get her wish.

Canyon has a new visitor center where we learned about the earthquakes that rattle Yellowstone daily (most are way too small to feel). I was sure glad I hadn't decided to stay in Canyon when I saw the snow on the ground. After the visitor center, we hiked Uncle Tom's trail. The ranger told us it had only been open for a week because of the late snow. The kids were troopers and we successfully made it down and back up all 328 stairs. Our last stop of the day in the park was Artist Point, where we enjoyed a farther away view of the same waterfall we saw from Uncle Tom's trail.

descending the steps

at the waterfall

parking lot at Uncle Tom's trailhead

artist point overlook

It was Isaac Colson's birthday so we drove back to West Yellowstone for dinner. Along the way, we spotted our second bear for the day. We ate pizza at Gusher's. Walking into the restaurant, my hopes weren't high. It looked like a run down greasy spoon (and not in a good way!) The pizza ended up being really good. We judge our pizza by the crust and their crust was thick and tasty.

We went back to Arrowleaf Ice Cream for ice cream since we'd liked it so much on Elizabeth's birthday. We were really lucky in our timing because we walked right in to both places and had pizza on the table in less than 15 minutes. Both restaurants had long lines when we left. Score!

William was not having a good day. As it went on, he got grumpier and more sullen. He took a much needed nap on our drive out of the park. I don't know if we could have made it through the restaurant meals without that nap!

We saw this pouty face a lot!