Our First Day in Yellowstone

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Wednesday morning arrives and we decide to catch up on things in the morning. Breakfast is oatmeal (Little Z gets dinosaur egg oatmeal). The RV site we are at has a laundry mat so Zorah wants to get a load or two of laundry done. We carry the laundry down to the place and every machine is full. Zeddicus suggests coming back later, Zorah asks the attendant how busy this is. He says ‘This is nothing, this is a slow as it’ll get). So instead of trying our luck later, Zorah hangs out and waits for a couple machines to free up. Zeddicus and Little Z head outside to play. Little Z is all about the dandelions again.
Around the laundry mat there are a bunch of people interested in Colby too. He’s still so cute and cuddly that people always want to pet him.
The laundry is done by lunch time and we all go back to the trailer.
Zorah isn’t feeling well and decides to stay home instead of going out venturing that evening so Zeddicus and Little Z pile into the truck and head out to explore Yellowstone.
The first stop is the Visitor Center for Fishing Bridge. Inside we find a few displays of different animals from the park (stuffed animals). Little Z really enjoyed the birds here. There is also a small gift shop and a ranger desk where people are asking questions and kids are getting sworn in as Jr. Rangers (little Z was too young for Jr. Rangers this year). Out the back door is a short walkway to Yellowstone Lake. Little Z of course wants to go hit the beach and throw rocks in the water.
We do this for a little while, and then head back to the truck to move on down the road to Grants Village.
On the way to Grants Village I pull off the road at a pullout with a sign that says ‘exhibit’. It turns out the exhibit is a sign and the pullout was too high off the water to reach the beach and throw rock. A couple pictures of Little Z later and we’re back on the road.
Just before Grants Village is a cauldron area. Zeddicus parks the truck and reaches for Monkey.
A few words about Monkey. Little Z has strongly embraced her individualism. This means that she knows now that she can do everything herself; put her shoes on, take her shoes off, walk (without holding someone’s hand), eat, and everything else. The walking was an issue at Yellowstone. Mom and dad were nervous about wild animals and the masses of people, but Little Z was more interested in running free. That’s where Monkey came in. Monkey is a backpack that looks like a monkey and has arms and legs that wrap around the wearer and a nice long tail that daddy can hang on to. Monkey worked out so well, and was such a novelty, that Little Z would ask for Monkey when we got to our next place to walk. And we were able to still work out a deal that holding hands was required in parking lots. With those few ground rules in place, Little Z was free to roam the length of Monkey’s Tail.
The cauldrons were pretty cool. There was a boardwalk that circled the area. Little Z was able to walk/run along looking at things. We walked part way around the cauldrons and took some pictures. At one particularly active cauldron Little Z exclaimed “Bubbles!” which was exactly right as the cauldron ‘boil’ and bubbles are constantly streaming to the top. After our walk around the cauldrons we headed back to the truck and got back on the road.
About 2 miles further down the road is Grant’s Village. This is another Visitor center that has a display inside about the forest fire of 1988 which brought in firefighters from all over the country. It was also about the time that they were realizing that allowing fires to burn themselves out was actually beneficial to the park instead of stopping every little flare up. (The reasoning is that the small fires actually help prevent the large fires because the small fires create ‘fire lines’ and when conditions are primed for the large fires they hit these fire lines and burn themselves out unlike in 1988 when thousands of acres of the park were burnt.)
There was a movie playing in a small movie theater here about the fire, and Little Z was interested in it, but we just watched a little bit from the back. Little Z enjoyed the display of ‘helmets’ though that had several helmets from the different firefighter groups as well as a display of the clothes they wore while fighting the fires.
At the little gift shop Zeddicus decided to pick up a National Parks Passport. This passport is designed to have spots for all of the different National Parks in the country. Each area has a large sticker to purchase and affix to the right place, as well as empty areas for ‘cancellations’. At each of the major sites in Yellowstone was a stamp available that you could mark in your passport. We ended up getting five cancellations all together.
When we left Grants Village we decided to grab a snack. Little Z wanted an apple, and Zeddicus got a drink then we decided to head over to Old Faithful. We had time before it would be too late and I wanted to see as much of the park as I could. The drive over was very neat as we passed the Continental Divide Twice. Again the roads were mostly empty and only occasionally would someone catch up to me and I just pulled over in a turn out, let them pass, and continued on my way.
At Old Faithful we had a little time before the geyser would erupt so we walked along the board walk. Old Faithful was obviously a huge attraction as this area of the park was the most developed that I had seen so far. The road split into two lanes each direction and there was an actual exit ramp to the parking lot instead of just a stop sign and a turn. The parking lot was huge and about half full when we arrived. There were people everywhere here. This was the only crowded place we saw during our whole visit.
There were benches on the boardwalk so we picked a spot and sat down. Little Z was very interested in her apple, and enjoyed taking bites and hoping up and down from the bench (on her own of course) chatting away the whole time. The people around her were amused at her observations and editorials.
After a few teases (water bubbling up and spurting out just a little bit) Old Faithful finally fired. Little Z exclaimed “The water go up to the sky!!!” And she was right, water flew over a hundred feet into the sky; it was great to see.
As soon as the water subsided everyone heads to the gift shops. We followed along, and browsed around. This time I picked up a box of Yellowstone Animal crackers (amazingly not just repackaged regular animal crackers but actually bears, elk, deer, and of course buffalo!) for Little Z and Buffalo pepperoni sticks for me. Tromping back to the truck we get our things together to head all the way back to camp.
A short ways out of Old Faithful and we come upon several cars parked along the road (a sure sign of an animal within viewing distance). Sure enough about 20-30 feet off the side of a road is a large male elk eating grass. There is still fuzz on it’s antlers as it’s early in the spring. We take our pictures, watch for a little while, then get back in the truck.
Little Z and daddy both are pretty tired at this point and the rest of the ride home is quiet with the sounds of animal crackers being devoured.
That evening’s dinner is $1 fish wraps we found at Walmart on our drive up; $1 for a piece of tilapia wrapped around a filling. We each had two as they were pretty small, and it was a good dinner.
Night time rolls around and we avoid going out for fear of being flown off by a bunch of mosquitoes. We tuck in for our second night in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone Fact:
Yellowstone is a huge park that basically has a figure eight road layout. There are 5 ‘Countries’ that divide the park into areas of similar terrain. Geyser Counter, Lake Country (where our camp site was), Canyon Country, XXX, XXX. In each of these areas is a visitor center with ranger station: Old Faithful Lodge, Fishing Village, Canyon Village, Mammoth Springs, and Tower Falls. There are a couple other Junctions where roads intersect, they usually have a campsite area or something like that. There are also numerous pullouts all along the roads. You can park in these pullouts (parking on the road is a $100 fine) and walk around from there. You have to stay 50 feet from any animal, and 100 feet from any bear (who’s measuring?) but otherwise you can wander around the park pretty much anywhere you want. They do not suggest hiking in the Geyser area though as these places have crusts formed over the boiling hot water that makes up the springs and other water features. The crusts could break and you would be scalded or worse.

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Photos

Checking out the Birds on dislpay
Little Z looking at all the different birds on display. We were able to see a lot of Pelicans around the park even. I had always thought Pelicans liked the warm weather of Florida.

At Yellowstone Lake
Here we are behind the Visitor Center at Fishing Bridge.

Colby Exhausted
Colby crashed out playing with BoBo

The Exibit Site
Another view of Yellowstone Lake.

I See An Ant!!!
That's what I hear her yell right as I take the picture. :O)

Monkey In Action
Here is monkey working his magic.

Walking Around Old Faithful
One of my favorite pictures from the trip. We are just walking around waiting for old faithful to blow.

Show's Over
Everyone go buy stuff.

Elk on the side of the road
This elk was just having dinner on the side of the road.

The Continental Divide
I asked Little Z to run over to the sign so I could take her picture. She ran right over to it, turned around and posed.