I packed all the clothes, bathroom gear, went Costco shopping for tons of food, loaded up the 4-runner and drove to Jason's work Wednesday afternoon. He had road his bike to work that morning. Then we took off. I drove 3 1/2 hours to Missoula, where we stayed in a hotel for the night. The following morning we hit the road and I drove another 4 hours to the West Entrance of Yellowstone. We stayed with Lee, Debra and Faith in their 2 bedroom Time Share Condo, which was 1 mile from the entrance. About 20 minutes from the condo Connor got car sick and we had to stop by the river to walk around for a bit until his stomach settled down. We met some fishermen and saw some crawdads while we rested. The roads were windy and it's typical for Connor to get car sick, so we travel with a puke bucket just for such occasions. We spent the evening visiting and resting in the condo. The boys laid on their Murphy bed and watched movies, while we visited.
Thursday after breakfast we set out to explore. Lee, Debbie and Faith have been to Yellowstone about 6 times now. They love exploring the park, so they showed us around. We had walkie talkies in the car, which Debra was a fantastic tour guide and pointed things out along the way. The weather was colder than we had expected, in the 40-50's with rain. When I had looked up the temperature to pack it said 60's, but I didn't realize Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres... so, I'm not sure which part of Yellowstone I was getting the forcasted weather for. Even if it was a bit chilly we had a blast exploring. We walked the boardwalks and drove around.
First stop was Midway Geyser Basin. Celestine Pool
Silex Spring. The hot pools get their colors from a collection of tiny organisms called thermophiles. Different species are different colors and live in the different water temperatures.
Fountain Paint Pots, which are thermal mud pots. They smell like rotten eggs from the hydrogen sulfide gas. Jason bought Connor a heat gun, which tells you how hot each of the geysers are.
Excelsior Geyser Crater. It was so misty that we couldn't see the crater very well, but we still had fun walking around the board walk checking things out.
Grand Prismatic Spring- the largest hot spring in the U.S.
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