Cazier Yellowstone Adventure

No fireworks for us this year. We spent the holiday appreciating the beauties of the outdoors. I feel like the Fourth of July has been the hardest holiday to create traditions around. We seem to be doing something different every other year. So the new tradition seems to be that we have no tradition. You know. The 'no-pattern' pattern. (It is a real thing. I learned about it on Cyberchase.)

We got up early and drove to Yellowstone National Park. I sheepishly admit that this was my first time going there. (Then again, from all my absent posts about camping, you probably already figured out I'm not much of an outdoors girl.) Tyler's parents are only a hop, skip, and a jump away, so that was nice that we only had to drive a couple hours.

We had only been in the park for a few minutes when we met our first resident. Nice of him to come out to greet us.

He brought his whole herd with him. It was pretty awesome.

Smile. You are almost close enough to be gored by a bison.

That is why we brought the binoculars.

This is something new you haven't seen before. Robyn with glasses.

I know I said glasses deserve a post of their own, but sometimes you go on vacation and get really behind on blogging. Then you are allowed to break all the blogging rules. The glasses weren't even supposed to be ready yet. Although I'm very glad that all kids who need glasses (so far) could see well for the trip. Nothing like blurry bison and geysers to make you fall in love with Yellowstone.

Our next stop was Old Faithful.

Robyn was kind enough to snap a picture for me. There's 'old' on the left, and 'faithful' on the right.

We were a little early for the next eruption, so we checked out the information center for facts and pictures. Little did we know that we would find a tripod. The light was terrible, but we needed to get a picture.

We are still obsessed with tripods and we finished the third book on our trip. Also, whenever we saw a water tower, we all yelled, TRIPOD. (Or tripodia, as Pearl calls them.) I almost convinced the kids that Tyler and I were around before the tripods were conquered. I told them that humans had taken the old tripods and put them to good use as water towers. (Daisy probably still believes it.)

Ok. Back to geysers. There was quite a crowd by eruption time.

I took some photos, and then I recorded it. Except that I didn't hit the button right, so I didn't record it. But luckily it goes off every hour or so. With Tyler's frame-by-frame, you get a pretty good idea.

And here is a still.

Then we proceeded to go back to the car ninety times because we couldn't remember everything in one trip. Although I wasn't really complaining because we were playing the license plate game, and Yellowstone has people from all over the country. (During the entire trip, I found all the states but five.) Here we are eating lunch and Tyler is headed to the car again.

We found a visitor during lunch. June says the pot gut she found was twice his size. No wonder he almost broke her critter catcher.

We finally got a picture by the official sign. We like to do things in order.

Then we went walk-about. There are trails to follow that lead you through a lot of the thermal activity. We watched Old Faithful from the back side. (Recording successful this time.)

Then we continued on through the steaming pools. Hey, we're on a bridge Charlie.

All the geysers have a name, since rangers must get bored too. This one was named Sponge Geyser. Pearl is our little Sponge Bob, so she got to pose by this one. (To be clear, I don't love Sponge Bob, so Pearl talks about him all the time to bother me.)

Tyler got some great panoramas as usual.

Look, I'm Super Mega Ultra Lightning Babe. I am in two places at once. (Anyone get that movie reference?)

The pools are obviously deep since they feed from the underground thermal resources, but I love how parts of them crust over and they look like secret caves.

You are supposed to stay on the trail. We only stepped off twice since the wind kept blowing my hat off. Here is June getting it for me.

This pool is beautiful. It is called the Crested Pool.

A panorama of Castle Geyser.

We wanted to see the painted mud pots as well, but we took a slight detour on our way back to see 3 Fairies Lake. Spectacular. I love all the colors.

We had a good view.

This area was close to the river. The river was warm at the edge from the heated run off from the pools. I dipped my hand in the water to feel the change in temperature. Didn't even burn myself. And maybe only slightly broke the rules about not touching thermal stuff. (Tyler did it too!)

We finally reached the painted pots.

I wasn't as impressed. I guess I was expecting more color. The bubbling mud was cool though.

And we got one family shot.

By this beautiful landscape.

Then it was time to head home. One more shot. Can you see the star?

Yellowstone was great fun. We went back to Idaho and spent time with Tyler's family for the rest of the evening. It was a great day. One of the best Fourths I've had.

And we barely scratched the surface. I'm thinking there may be more Yellowstone adventures in the Cazier's future.