Hot Water, Steam and More Buff-lo

We (and by we I mean me and the kids because James is crazy low on vacation days unfortunately) took Ed and Georgina to Yellowstone on the last day of their visit.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day.  Unfortunately, there's one problem with visiting the park in the cool days of the shoulder season.  Steam.

Well, and a bit of wind here didn't help :-)   For a certain 2 year old obsessed with steam (from cars, the tea kettle, the sink, geysers etc.) the abundance of steam was awesome.  (Especially since all week he'd told us that geysers were "scary just a little bit" so in toddler logic geysers=scary and steam=exciting.

Unfortunately, the steam did take a bit away from viewing the geysers and some of my favorite pools.  We did get to peek at a few of the deep blue pools though and the gorgeous blue skies of the day certainly helped with the experience!  I loaned my camera to Ed for the day which was great because he got some great shots of not only the scenery but me and kids which is a rarity.

 The last time I visited here was on our honeymoon (when getting a picture without a bunch of other tourists in the background was near impossible)!

Anyway, back to present-ish day:

We saw quite a few of these guys on the trip (not surprising).  As Matthew recap-ed for everyone "Saw Buff-lo.  No get out the car."

We also saw these guys and with the help of some zoom/cropping have at least a little digital proof:

Of course, no trip would be complete without a stop at Old Faithful.  It was a great day to be at the park because it was relatively empty.  This meant Old Faithful was relatively quiet.  Luckily these two monsters were there to disrupt the tranquility with their happy shrieks and incessant talking:

Matthew was not as keen on waiting for Old Faithful but was very concerned about "going to see more animals".  We talked about the animals we had seen and what we might see.  When I asked him what he wanted to see he said "snakes".  I explained that it was unlikely we'd see snakes, to which he countered "no.  Go see snakes at the zoo."  We also were discussing how sometimes animals visit old Faithful and we could tell from the Buffalo Dung that buffalo had been there.  He then noted "Buffalo poop.  Need to go pick it up."  Oh the world from a two year old's point of view.  Catherine got bored and wandered off (another great part about the park being pretty empty was letting her crawl on the board walk since she'd been cooped up in the backpack/carseat all day):

Of course Matthew had to follow:

And at this point between Matthew's giggles and Catherine's little shrieks combined with their 4-legged stance set some dogs at the end of the boardwalk crazy so we called the adventure complete and headed into the new visitor's center then back on the road.  It's hard to show off Yellowstone in one day (especially with a baby and toddler in tow) so after Old Faithful we headed toward Yellowstone Canyon, one of my other favorite spots in the park.

 Catherine and my foot sat out a few of the stops so she could stretch her legs and I could rest mine.

 Matthew however was ready to explore:

And we were all ready for some good barbecue at the end of the long day.

All in all a great day in a great place with great people and definitely something we should be doing more often!  And speaking of hot water, in addition to building our fire pit we fired up the hot tub this weekend. So far no leaks and everything works (we think) so once we give it a test soak or two (and get the electricity bill!) we'll be deciding whether or not to keep it.