Yellowstone National Park

On our way to Yellowstone we stopped in a place that is really quite amazing. It is called Quake Lake. Back in 1959 a 7.5 earthquake shook the Yellowstone area. It was in the middle of the night and as you can imagine, things became crazy. The side of the mountain literally fell down burying dozens of people and damning up the Madison River. This formed Quake Lake. You see those two big boulders above the tour bus?--those boulders are monuments to those who died in the earthquake..get this..they were originally on the other side of the ravine at the top of the mountain (that mountain that is behind Luke and James). It is quite the geological wonder.



















For two days our family drove and drove and drove through Yellowstone Nationall Park. Did I mention we did a lot of driving?? We didn't even get to see a third of the park..it is so ginormous!















It is bigger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. It was often 20 miles between sites. But for me, it was a beautiful relaxing drive with my family--even when we were stuck on the road for an hour waiting for the road construction to let us through, or even when the cars would get in a long line as they looked at wildlife (YES people it is ANOTHER deer!! Keep moving keep moving!!).















Moms will appreciate this....toward the end of the trip Mark wanted an apple just like his brothers. After much trepidation, we finally gave him one and stared at him while he ate it. Well, he commenced with taking a bite, chewing it, and then spitting it out onto himself. It was great entertainment...really...at the next stop we had to shake him off and clean out the car seat since there was sticky apple everywhere!














Black Bear- it was a good hundred yards away but you could clearly see it.














Bison right outside the car..like 4 feet away..crazy!!














At Mammoth Springs




























We traveled through the waterfall loop to look at all of the waterfalls. They were so beautiful!

















Dustin with his little bunch. He came straight from two weeks of military training. He is scheduled to be deployed in the next year.
















Yes that is SNOW! There was actually quite a bit of it in the mountain areas.














It was our anniversary this day! Love you sweety!



























Old Faithful...we were there the night before at dusk and I think that we were the only ones there!! The kids said "Well whats the big deal! Nobody is here to watch it but us!" Well the next day when we saw it at lunchtime, the crowd was greatly improved. Old Faithful was 20 minutes late and spouted off for a shorter amount of time than usual. The night before it performed much more satisfactorily.














Geyser country





























Yes that water is HOT! Just ask Ben.














We wanted to pour a bucket of water and see which way the water poured down the mountain..but we were out of buckets and didn't have much water.