Lots of pics - wildlife

Deer

Buffalo

Eagle

Goat (from Glacier)

Can't tell but this is a bear - also from Glacier - have GREAT video of this but our new camera has pitiful zoom - will post the vid sometime.

Lots of pics - more yellowstone

Unintentional funny pic - Mari's hair is crazy, but not quite THAT crazy:


Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone:


Our nice 'snacknic' on Yellowstone Lake:


A Specter lake picnic tradition - "Cleaning up the beach"

Lots of pics - thermal features

No smellovision here - but Faith's expression should give you some idea of the odor.

Obligatory Old Faithful pic:

Sure hope this is normal...

Hot springs don't translate well to photos - this is a pretty good one though:

At Mammoth Hot Springs:

Explanations first, pics later.

Greetings from Arco. The world's first city to be lit by atomic energy. To get here we had to drive through a vast expanse of creepy "Idaho Research Laboratory" countryside - best left to the imagination I figure.

We are here a day earlier than intended. After 3 days of Yellowstone we were all drained and exhausted. We hadn't done everything, but we had done the major stuff. The original plan was to do Grand Teton as well, but hauling everyone 2 hours and then back again seemed like stretching it...and the food budget was starting to be stretched at Big Sky prices. So we thought we'd just chill. But the more Steph and I thought about it the more we didn't like the thought of sitting so close to all this and doing NOTHING. So we got the idea to bolt early and add a day in Salt Lake City, which would involve a change of scene and shorter drives.

Dad was a great sport and rearranged the reservations so we left early this morning for Arco. We visited Craters of the Moon National Monument - basically a big old lava field in the middle of Idaho. Very cool. Very hot though. The girls and I got to go a little ways into a lava tube which they liked a lot.

The Mountain View RV Park is nice. Got here early and got to choose our own space. Huge wide grassy area by the space, great view of the Arco "Number Hill" - look it up.

Tomorrow on to Salt Lake City for a day and a half, and then the haul home begins. Will take us most of a week to get home, all of them 1-night stays except for a day in St. Louis before we come home. The end is in sight. More thoughts on that as it gets closer.

I will get to work on uploading some Yellowstone pics ASAP. Thanks for stopping by!

Matt

Change of plans

We are in Arco, ID. We left Yellowstone a day early, I'll explain why in a later post. Meanwhile, the internet connection went down at the Yellowstone KOA and never came back, hence the lack of posting on my part. "Struck by lightning" said the KOA staff. Not so sure about that.

Anyway, all is well. Yellowstone pics tonight, and a summary of the last few days.

Later,
Matt