Yellowstone Day 2

We haven't been to Norris since Seth was a baby.

We woke up early and headed toward West Yellowstone. With Covid and no international travel, we knew the national parks would be packed, and we were not surprised. By the time we hit the west gate at 8 o'clock, there was almost a thirty minute wait to get through. We finally made it and headed into the park. 

We grabbed the last parking spot at Norris Geyser Basin and hiked to both trails. We didn't see too many eruptions, but there was a lot of bubbling and fuming, and the colors were really pretty. Steamboat Geyser has been erupting every few weeks, so we stood around hopefully for awhile before heading back to the car. 

Norris was very steamy when we visited in the cooler morning.

Seth loved the blue pools.

We watched Vixen geyser for quite awhile.

Dax's hair is so long!

We really, really wanted Steamboat Geyser to erupt, but it didn't.

As we drove away from Norris, we noticed that cars were lined up all the way past the junction, reminding us that park is really full! Still, we headed past Virginia Falls and over to Canyon. We hadn't done any of the Canyon Overlooks recently (except our biennial trip to Artist's Point), so we wanted to try a few of those. We lucked out on parking again, and we managed to visit the brink of both Upper and Lower Falls, as well as more than enough overlooks. We met up with the family at Artist Point, and we had lunch in the parking lot there.

We loved standing at the top of Lower Falls.

This was a new adventure for Dax.

We were standing at the top of that waterfall a few minutes ago.

Randy and I love being in Yellowstone together.

There was a beautiful waterfall at the top of Upper Falls.

It even became a full rainbow.

Randy takes the best selfies.

We have a picture at Artists Point every year in Yellowstone. It's so fun to remember.

We managed to spot a few bears in Hayden Valley. We saw a black bear and her two cubs playing just off the road. One cub was light and the other was dark, and they were so cute! We watched with a whole lot of other people before continuing south. After a short stop at Fishing Bridge, we turned around and headed back up the road. We spotted a huge bull elk and decided to turn around and head back for it. As we turned Seth yelled, "Bear!" and sure enough we saw another black bear heading into the trees. We didn't manage any pictures because he was gone so fast, but it brought our bear count to 4. 

Our first of many bears in Yellowstone.

We always walk on Fishing Bridge to look for beavers.

We spun around in the car to go take a picture of this elk.

We had a little trouble with the Surburban that we borrowed from Grandpa on the way out of the park. It kept seizing, and we'd have to let it pull over and sit for a few minutes. There was also massive traffic between Yellowstone and West Gate. We sat in stop-and-go traffic for over five miles, which took us almost 30 mintues. At the end of the traffic, we found two cow elk on the side of the road that everyone needed to gawk at. But we made it out of the park.

After a quick dinner, we grabbed some ice cream. Then we went to our second play at the West Yellowstone Playmill. The show was Newsies, and it was really well performed. Unfortunately, the theater was extremely hot, but Grandpa Daniels bought us all an ice cold treat to help us get through. We enjoyed the play, though most of us voted Robin Hood our favorite of the two.

We love going to plays as a family.

These three were best buddies the entire trip.