Good grief...! How big is this lake?

Yesterday was our first day in Yellowstone, and we wore our matching shirts! At the beginning of our drive, we couldnt make it out of Cody, WY without making several stops and marveling at the scenery....Its an hour drive to Yellowstone, but it was a really pretty one.

Once we got to Yellowstone, we toured the bottom half of the figure 8 loop that runs throughout the state park. We spent the whole day just on this loop.

The best part of the day happened just inside the park gate. We decided to take a quick restroom break since we didnt know if we'd run into another bathroom anytime soon. It was raining in the morning, so we made a mad dash from the car to the bathroom and back again. Clay was the last one to go, and while he was in the unisex restroom (aka a glorified port-a-potty), we saw a rather large lady approach the door. Dad then began one of the funniest commentaries highlighting the lady opening the door, Clay forgetting to lock the door, and one embarrassed encounter.....but much to our surprise.....the commentary came true!! As the lady grabbed the door, we all gasped and then erupted into hilarious laughter as we saw her surprised face and then later Clay laughing as he ran to the car....several times during the day, one or several of us would bust up laughing just thinking about it, which would then spur the entire family into laughter....

Yellowstone is gorgeous! We have many pictures to prove it. The first few hours, we probably stopped almost every mile to get out, take pictures, get a group photo with our matching shirts, and then head back out.

But then around 2 pm, it turned into a wide variety of the following comments, "Geiser? Seen one, seen 'em all", "When will we ever get around this stupid lake?", "ok...sick of the trees, where's the lake again?", "hmm...how bad do we really want to get out of the car?", "More buffalo? Really people...How many pictures do you need?", and "Jeep! Will you please drive the speed limit or pull over to let us pass you?"

(click on this one to make it larger)

We saw 2 bears, elk, mule deer, a wolf, pronghorns, and lots of buffalo...as well as cascades, waterfalls, ponds, lakes, trees, rocks, mountains, snow, geysers, and sulfur springs. While we were waiting for Old Faithful to go off, Dad bought us Cokes and we put peanuts in the bottles. Apparently, we are of the wrong generation....cause this is really cool for him. Old Faithful proved to be better than expected. At first, we only saw about a 2 ft. spray, but then a few minutes later it probably sprayed about 50ish feet or so...

Attempt 1: Climb a Tree

Attempt 2: Climb a standing Tree