Yellowstone National Park, Day Three

On our third day, we visited the Midway geyser basin.

The hot steam smells like sulfur.

The Grand Prismatic is the largest hot spring in the world!

We hiked along a trail so that we could see the Grand Prismatic from above... it was stunning!

Another hydrothermal area with steam vents, also known as fumaroles.

The water looks so pretty but it is actually boiling hot and acidic.

These are mudpots... acidic hot springs that contain liquid mud.

Cousin Ella arrived in town that evening!

Yellowstone National Park, Day Two

Day number two at Yellowstone started with a long line of cars at the entrance... the line moved so slowly that the girls and I actually had time to jump out of the car and take this photo in front of the sign!

It was a cloudy but still beautiful day.

We stopped for an early lunch... Emily ordered a kid's meal and was pleased to discover that it came with a lollipop. 

We drove through the Lamar Valley in the north end of the park. The landscapes were so pretty.

A bison lounging in the grass. 

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is gorgeous!

I liked the blue stripe of rock near the bottom...

Walking to the Tower Fall overlook.

We hiked on another trail and ended up by the river.

Another waterfall view...

We hiked down to the waterfall itself... the water was moving so fast! 

Yellowstone National Park, Day One

We went to a Rufener family reunion in Yellowstone National Park! We flew into Bozeman, Montana a couple of days before the reunion started. Here is Emily with a giant sock monkey at the Bozeman airport. 

We had lunch at a restaurant called Dave's Sushi... it was pretty good!

In the late afternoon we drove to Yellowstone for our first visit. 

We parked the car and walked to the Mammoth Hot Springs. 

Heated water from deep underground dissolves calcium carbonate as it percolates through buried limestone... when the hot spring water reaches the surface, it deposits the calcium carbonate and creates these amazing travertine terraces. 

A Star Trek movie was apparently once filmed here because of the other worldly appearance of the area. 

A storm suddenly came in during our visit... the sky became so dark!

We went back to our car and as we drove away we saw this gorgeous rainbow!