Scenes from Day 3 of Summer Vacation 2010

August 1, 2010: Day 3 of our summer vacation and we were filled with anticipation and excitement of getting to see our ultimate goal Yellowstone National Park.

One of the biggest surprises was how much traffic there is in YNP. The wait just to enter the park was almost 20 minutes with 4 lanes of traffic. We were so grateful to my dad who was our chauffeur in his big truck (as in Semi-truck, not pickup truck). The girls were armed with their cameras and we began seeing wildlife almost immediately.

I loved witnessing the excitement on Kippy's face as she was able to see and photograph the sights. I think that alone made absolutely everything (planning, time, expense) worth it. My heart was definitely singing!
We explored the Lower Geyser Basin and read a lot of information about the various geothermal features and saw the famous Fountain Paint Pots and watched Fountain Geyser erupt.

We spent so much time at the Lower Basin that we skipped the Middle Basin and headed straight to the Upper Geyser Basin. After grabbing a quick lunch, we headed to see Old Faithful only to find out that we missed the eruption by 2 minutes.

That actually was a good thing, because it gave us 90 minutes to go and check out the historic Old Faithful Inn which is over 100 years old and walk along the boardwalk to see many of the other Upper Basin geysers. We did some virtual Geocaching and took pictures in front of the appropriate geysers and learned a lot along the way. One item that really caught Kippy's attention was the warning sign about walking off of the boardwalk because it featured a story about at 9 year old boy who was killed in the 1970's while on vacation. The fact that he was 9 is what impacted her the most.

Our patience was eventually rewarded and Old Faithful made a great showing. From our vantage point on the boardwalk, we were able to see, hear, smell and actually FEEL the steam from the eruption. It was amazing. Afterward, we rewarded ourselves with big scoops of ice cream. You can enjoy Kippy's sideways version of Old Faithful here {she recorded it with her new camera that she bought herself the week before we went on her trip}.



This was actually my 2nd time to YNP, but the first time I went, I was 7 years old and can hardly remember it. We definitely created new lasting memories on this family trip.