Yellowstone North Loop

We headed out on the North Loop this morning. As we got to one of the first geysers, it started to rain a little bit. We weathered the storm and were able to view some hot springs with a lot of different colors. We continued on the loop until we came to the Norris Geyser Basin. This is a large area with many different hot springs, geysers and steam vents. In some areas, it looked like you were on a different planet. The picture below is of one of the pools in the Norris Geyser Basin.

We kept on going with the help of our GPS guide. We really liked this as it explained different things as we went. Often one of the kids would ask us a question and shortly thereafter, the GaperGuide (as it is called) would go into detail about it.

We took a drive above the Mammoth Hot Springs and came across a geyser called the Ice Cream cone. It was orange colored and water was going up through the top and then flowing down the sides. It was pretty cool.

We saw a bunch of cars stopped on the road before we made it to Mammoth and decided to stop. We asked someone what they were looking at and the said a Grizzly Bear. We had to take a better look. We pulled to the side of the road and got out the binoculars and the picture below is the bear that we saw. It was a long way away but that was fine with all of us. At least we can say we saw a wild one.

We also saw a Bighorn Sheep and a Coyote. Both were on the road in front of us and we got a couple of good pictures. In fact, about the only animals that we didn't see were a Moose and a Wolf. It's been a good trip for animal watching.

We ended up passing by the falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, except this time we were on the other side. I took a video of the falls.

By the way, Stuart made another appearance in Yellowstone. He found an interesting sign that he had to see. On closer inspection, it looks like someone messed with the sign. However, given the amount of poop that we've had to walk around in all the areas we've hiked in, this might not be far from the truth.

We ended up our day in Cody Wyoming. We're tired of driving and ready for a break. One of the things we were in awe of was the many various types of landscapes that are in the park. This place has them all. I think we definately would like to make another trip here. It's closer than you think to home and there is so much to see.

On a different note, we have a longer drive tomorrow than I thought. Somehow when I was putting all of the information together for the trip, I carefully planned out each stop with the mileage and where we would end up and how long it would take us to get there. In all of the notes I had, I figured it would take us about 3 hours to get from Cody WY to Hills SD. I got on the computer this evening and plugged in both locations to see a map of where we were going. To my surprise, it showed that it would take us about 6 1/2 hours to make the same trip. I could take the blame myself for making the mistake, or I can assume that in Wyoming, time and mileage is calculated in a different way and there is some kind of unique calculation that is different than anywhere else in the US. I choose the latter...