Animals in the park

Where are your favorite places to vacation?  

What about with children?

Where are their favorite places to vacation?

This time we printed off the Junior Ranger packets for Yellowstone at home so they could fill them out on the drive.   We ended up having to pick up the packets for the Grand Teton park at the visitor center in Moose Junction.

This is a bull moose. Can you tell?  I know, wrong side of the road and sun flare too.  

Moose Junction, Grand Teton National Park

Of course this one is in an enclosure.  It's a grizzly bear who is foraging for food.  We took the kids to West Yellowstone on our way out of the National Park.  They also have two different wolf enclosures. They now have an eagle/hawk/owl enclosure where they care for injured birds.

This is a bison walking up the road in Yellowstone National Park.  He was just plodding along but when we saw him later that day on our way down from Norris toward Old Faithful he was still on the road and had traveled miles.  He had a mission and all the cars on the road were going to just have to slow down and let him by.

This is the second elk we saw and a nice big bull elk too. Tyler made a noise like an elk call and he lifted his head long enough for a photo.

And this was just south of Mammoth Hot Springs.  Lots of elk there. A few small bulls and one spike. These were mostly cows with the bulls off in the trees.

We also saw a beautiful Fox, ravens, hawks, ground squirrels, and two coyotes.

Uncle Tom's Trail in Yellowstone National Park

Good thing we live at 5,000 feet elevation and have hiked at much higher elevations this summer. This was really a piece of cake, just a little scary for me.  My husband just laughed.

This photo is quite a ways down the stairs but with more to go.  See that the stairs have drainage holes in them? That means you can see where you will fall to your doom, should this staircase that is bolted to the wall without much support from below collapse. At the Old Faithful visitor center we got to hear all about the earthquakes in Yellowstone Park.  Apparently they are daily and up to 15 a day.  The earthquakes are always changing features in the park such as geysers and mud pots which is cool but don't think about them when you are on this staircase.  However, the view is absolutely worth it.  Too bad we had to run up the stairs because some small child decided he suddenly needed to go to the bathroom. I enjoyed the view much better on the way up.

After this we made our way over to the North Rim and if you look closely you can see the people just above the right side of the top of the falls.  That was another 600 foot decent and accent.  Well worth it too.

Yellowstone in 3 days ...

We spent three days visiting Yellowstone National Park and just got home tonight. In fact we picked up dinner on the way home and purchased some extra for the in-laws for watching our parrot Kiwi while we were gone.  

It's the first time our children have been to Yellowstone.  I was pregnant with my daughter the last time we came. The Artist Viewpoint is significant for us because that is where Tyler and I had our engagement photo taken almost 14 years ago.

What's your favorite place to visit in Yellowstone? 

What's your favorite trail to hike?  We finally went on Uncle Tom's trail and it is breathtaking - and our new favorite trail.

Since we've been home we've been busy unpacking, ironing church clothes, and playing games with Kiwi.

We had a great time and I'll be sharing more photos very soon!