On the way out on the fourth day we saw something that the rangers in the area said was very very rare -- a wolf! And there were tons of cars pulled over to see it too. It was kind of a white/gray, but it was there for quite a while. Hopefully you can kind of see it in these pictures.
Here are a few pictures of the bison crossing the road -- we saw this a few times, but they were peaceful.
We also crossed paths with another elk that was posing for everyone. Luckily this time Saul had a few trees to hide behind, but this made him even more brazen than the last time. He got right up next to this one.
Just another perfect day in Yellowstone. The sky was so blue and the hills so beautiful I had to try to snap a few pictures.
Here we are at Mammoth Hot Springs
The bacteria growing in the water is what gives the Hot Springs their color. Unfortunately, most of it was not flowing with water, so we only saw it in gray/white. Even Minerva Terrace which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful! Oh well, we'll just have to hope everything's flowing on our next visit. The sulfur smell was not as bad as I remembered it being from when I was a kid either.
Andreas was a great camper and hiker -- He enjoyed being out and was pretty agreeable throughout our adventures. Of course, the comment we heard the most from passers by was "I wish I was riding in one of those!" followed closely by "Well that is riding in style!".
Dead Minerva Terrace
Then we headed to Roosevelt Lodge for a stagecoach ride. I wish it could have been the trail ride, but we have to wait for Andreas to be a bit older for that. Here is Dad next to our stagecoach.
The view on the stagecoach ride:
That's me, Saul, and Andreas in the back. Mom and Dad in front of us.
Next we stopped at Tower Falls. The main hiking trail was closed so we couldn't get any closer, but the view from the short trail was beautiful anyway.
We stopped into a little souvenir shop where I saw the coonskin hat for Andreas (which of course I couldn't resist). When a worker there saw us he insisted that we have him ride the bear so we could get some pictures. Unfortunately they came out a bit blurry, but I think the whole store was enjoying the spectacle. And yes, I ended up buying the hat.
On the way back to the campground we had a bison pass directly in front of our car. You first, Mr. Buffalo!
On the way back we also saw a Grizzly Bear in a meadow with two cubs. Unfortunately, it was too far away to get a picture of, but with our binoculars it was really cool to see. One of our favorite animal viewing adventures for sure.
Here we are at Norris Geyser Basin:
They had every color of the rainbow there, and it was so vibrant, it almost seemed unreal. We thought it was weird to think about people in the olden days just riding their horses around and then happening upon crazy stuff like this:
Andreas had just about had it by the time we reached this point of the hike, so we had to stop for about 20 minutes to feed him on the deck overlooking this spring. We had a lot of time to look at it, and it was so interesting to see the colors. The colors were directly related to the temperature of the water. We saw a kid with one of those thermometer shooting laser things, and we wished we had one.
More beautiful views all around too!
This is Emerald Spring:
This spring was an eerie white -- almost like milk.
I'm not sure if the picture shows it, but the mud here was boiling and spitting.
We had to hike up and around to get this view at the Artist Paint Pots, but it was worth it to see the boiling mud and other cool stuff at the top.
Then we went to upper and middle geyser basins. One of our favorites was this spring. Dad almost missed it because he was trying to help some people with their car that had broke down, but we insisted he see it since it was so spectacular. Also of note was that Mom saw someone letting their little kids pick wildflowers and then throw them on the ground, so in true principal style she went over there and gave them all a talking to.
A pretty active geyser was going off there too:
