You know you're back in the mountains by the seasonal clothing changes that you cycle through in every 24 hour period. As soon as the sun start to go down, get ready for late fall: Put on warm socks, long pants, and a warm fleece top (and you still could feel a little chilly). As the sun comes up, get ready for the middle of summer: Strip down to a tank top and shorts. People who live here are saying to themselves "duh!" but for us Minnesotans, when it's summer, it's summer, and when it's winter, it's winter, and this is a lot of clothing changes with three kids!
We hiked the West Thumb trail and saw the many interesting thermal features, including the kids' favorite: Fishing Cone Geyser. Back in the early days of Yellowstone, fisherman would catch fish in the from the lake, and then throw them into the Fishing Cone Geyser to cook. We walked this boardwalk path two years ago when Marina was with us. The kids love it. Ehren corrected us and said the small steam vents are fumeroles, not geysers (thank you very much Fetch from pbskids.org).
Hiked Lone Star trail, but the kids got tuckered out before we made it all the way to the geyser. Afterwards, we stopped for a quick picnic lunch, and then went to Black Sand Basin for some more spectacular hot spring and geyser viewing. Next stop: Biscuit Basin. More mudpots and fumeroles. Next stop: Midway Geyser Basin, home of the hot waterfalls and the spectacular Grand Prismatic Geyser, which looks like a rainbow. Every sign we passed, Anna said, "What does that sign say?" and if it was an interpretive sign, after I read some of it, she said, "Talk more about that, Mom."
Drove up to White Dome Geyser, which erupted while we were there and actually sprayed our car.
Next stop: Norris Geyser Basin. We hiked almost all the trails. It was already a lot cooler, and there were a lot more things to see, so the kids did much better on this trail. The trail was not crowded while we were there, so it was great but we did get caught in a little rain at the very end.
Back at the campground, we had a wild night. We returned to our camp site to find a herd of buffalo between our tent and the bathroom. The situation escalated as we made our camp fire and tried to roast hot dogs... the buffalo got spooked and stampeded right past our tent. Dan was calm about the situation, but not I. I was thinking of the signs posted in the campground bathrooms that warn visitors not to approach buffalo because many visitors have been gored. We survived.
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