Yellowstone!

As predicted - no cell phone or internet service in most of Yellowstone.  We got a signal when we were at Old Faithful, but I didn't have my computer with me so all I could do was use a smart phone to post a title (it won't let you do anything else).  So, to finish the tire story, Joe did a great job locating tires for us, putting them on, and sending us on our way.  He was so nice, and he said he has been doing this since he was 13 years old!  He pointed out the old school house across the street from his house/business that he started going to back in 1955.  I love meeting people like Joe, I just wish it could have been under different circumstances.  Well, once he was done, we got on our way, and if I remember correctly it was about 7pm when we got back on the road.  That put us into our campground around 10:45 at night - and boy are those campsites in Yellowstone tight!  I had already read about that, so we were semi-prepared, but we just barely fit our RV, our tow dolly, and our car in there.  No matter, we got all hooked up, got ready for bed, and fell fast asleep.

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The next day (yesterday) we were gone from our camper for 12 hours straight!  We first wanted to see Old Faithful, so we made a beeline for it right out of the shoot.  Nicole read some Bible passages for us on the way, and we sang some songs, so we had a very abbreviated Little Church.  As we were driving in to the Old Faithful area, I saw Old Faithful just finishing going off – bummer.  But we spent some time just taking everything in, and then the kids talked us into getting ice cream – yummy!  There was a boardwalk around Old Faithful, so we walked on that, and then visited the Visitor’s Center (how appropriate) and watched a short film, and then it was time for the Old Geyser to spew forth its contents again.  It was pretty cool!  Here is a picture of us watching it along with a few hundred of our friends, and a picture of Old Faithful itself, along with a few other pictures of our time there:

From there we drove north and then east to Little Grand Canyon, and what a breath taking sight that was!  But on the way, we saw a couple Elk.  We tried to get some pictures, but  they really didn't turn out so good, so I'm not uploading them here.
Anyway, at Little Grand Canyon we hiked down to a lookout point, and it was really amazing!  It reminded us of a cross between Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon – like a much smaller version of both put together.  Here are a couple pictures from there (you may need to click on them to enlarge them) .  

After all that hiking we were starving, so we drove until we found a nice picnic spot that wasn’t very crowded.  After setting up everything for lunch, we rubber banded Nicole’s camera to a tree so we could set the timer on the camera and have all of us in the picture.  Check out the picture, and then see how we did it with her camera.  Pretty cool, eh? 

Finally, it was time for more wildlife.  We came upon a line of cars stopped, and we asked them what they were looking at because we didn’t see anything.  They told us a bear had just gone over a ridge so that we couldn’t see him anymore (bummer again – just missed it!).  But like Old Faithful, we had a 2nd chance.  We drove up a dirt road a ranger had told Tim about, and when we got to the top we realized it was the other side of that ridge, and maybe we would be seeing the bear after all.  Sure enough, just a couple minutes after we arrived, the bear arrived, too, and walked right in front of us!  It was amazing!  I talked to a Ranger about our encounter and showed him some pictures and he said he is pretty sure this was a grizzly because of his collar (they don't collar the other bears) and his rough coat.  Here are a couple pictures of him:

Isn't that incredible??  From there, we drove over to the Lamar Valley, and we came upon a big field of bison, but they were really far away.   So we stopped and I took some pictures of the family goofing around on this rock.  Nicole snapped this really cool picture of Nicholas jumping off of it:

Soon after driving away from there, this huge bald eagle swooped down from the rightside of us, right in front of us, and down through a valley to the left of us.  We were all so mesmerized we didn’t get a picture, but I’m sure we will never forget it!  We had just been talking about the fact that seeing pronghorns were kind of rare, when we rounded a bend, guess what we saw?  A herd of pronghorns – they were so cute, although a bit far away for good pictures, but here is what we got:

We didn't know if we'd get to see any bison closer than that one herd we saw so far away, until shortly after we left the pronghorns.  And then, we saw a huge herd up close and personal crossing the road in front of us!

It was really amazing to see so many wildlife in one day!  We didn’t get home until 9:45pm – another late night dinner, but everyone pitched in and it was ready in 15 minutes and devoured in probably less time than that! 
This morning, while Nathan & Noah were getting showers and Tim was starting the laundry, I grabbed Nicholas and we went to the nearby visitor's center to listen to a ranger talk and then turn in his 12 page Junior Ranger guide that he had spent all day yesterday filling out.  They got everyone's attention in the visitor's center and announced what he had done and presented him the badge - it was really cool!  Then we unhooked and checked out, and the boys went fishing for a bit by the marina while Nicole and I took the car and went to look at the mud pots (pee-uuu!).  The sulfer was so strong, but they were quite interesting.  Here are a couple of shots of our time:

When Nicole & I got back, we hooked the car up the RV, and away we went.  We drove about 1/2 way to Mr. Rushmore, so we're looking forward getting to Mt. Rushmore tomorrow!  Thank you to all who prayed for us over our tire ordeal - it definitely could have been a lot worse!  Hope everyone is having a great week!