Brynde and Ian: Birthday in Yellowstone

I wanted to go through Yellowstone for my birthday. We spent the night at the cabin and then got up early to go through the park. We had breakfast in West Yellowstone, then our adventure began. We saw one lone elk as we first came in the park. Then, not a single animal of significance for quite awhile.

We made it to Old Faithful at just the right time. We only had to wait about 10 minutes for it to go off. This was probably the second time I've been to Yellowstone in the dead of summer. There were lots of people! The only things we were missing were our fanny packs and big floppy hats! It was so funny to watch and listen to the people around us. They were all taking pictures at the slightest amount of steam. It was so crazy to me how this was their first time being in Yellowstone. There were so many different languages spoken. I think it's awesome people travel from all over the world to come see this place that is an hour and a half away from us. I guess I've kind of taken it for granted over the years that we are so close to this awesome place. It's one of my favorite places though.

After Old Faithful went off, we decided to walk around the geysers. I haven't in years and Ian never had. It was like watching a little kid! Yellowstone just amazes me. How can there be these geysers are in the middle of a forest? The whole park is so diverse. It's such a beautiful place.

We made our way up along Yellowstone Lake. Everytime we take this drive, I can't belive how big this lake is. It always makes me think of the one time we went boating here as kids. You could see right through to the bottom!

Because we got up so early, we had to stop for a little nap. We pulled off here by the lake and laid our seats back for a little snooze. Apparently there were fugitives who had murdered people in Arizona and made their way up to Yellowstone. Well, I awake to Ian telling me to sit up. There was a white truck parked kind of funny next to us. There was no one else in the pull out, but there they were right next to our car. As soon as I sat up, they left. Knowing there were fugitives in the park from Arizona, made the fact that this truck had Arizona plates a little creepy.

We kept driving up the lake and stopped on the other side for a picnic. This picture cracks me up!

As we got back on the main road from our picnic spot, we got to see the first real animals of the day. I bet this is the third time I've ever seen deer in Yellowstone, so I was super excited. They were right along the road. We had passed them before Ian knew they were there. I made him turn around and they ended up running along the road beside us. Seeing these deer totally made my day.

Right after we saw the deer, there was a lone buffalo on the road. It was pretty awesome too. I was just excited we had started to see animals. The point of us getting up so early was to see them... By this time it was about 2:30pm.

We had came to a very long line of stopped cars. As we crept along, we started to see a heard of buffalo. At this point I don't think we realized just how many buffalo there were in this heard. It took us a while to get through, but it was awesome. They were right along the road.

This particular buffalo was huge! By the time we got up next to it, it was taller than our car. I can't believe I rode through a heard of these beasts on a snowmobile once. It was one of the scariest things I have ever done.

This is the same big buffalo. I somehow got a straight on shot. It was probably two feet away from me. I quickly rolled up my window after I took the picture because it scared me a little. One little move and he could have been in the car with me. This shot really makes me laugh though.

We made it to Canyon. This is one of my favorite places in Yellostone. Looking down into this huge canyon is very disorienting because it's so far down.

I just can't get over how beautiful this waterfall is.

Ian is laying pretty much flat on his back here so I could get the river in the background. It doesn't look too scary, but I was a little nervous the rock he was on was going to snap off...

We made it to Mammoth in hopes to see some elk. We didn't see a single one here. I found it very odd. If they have signs everywhere saying not to approach the elk, you would think you would see some like you do every other time you have been here.

We did the geyser drive. I thought the rainbow over this geyser was cool. Too bad the picture doesn't capture how pretty the geyser was.

We were going to go to a picnic spot I've always gone to as a kid to open my presents. I ended up opening them in the car while we were sitting in the Norris road construction. It wasn't quite what I had planned, but it was definately humorous and memorable.

Finally, here is our elk! Funny that it is almost at the park exit. It's probably the same one we saw at the very begining of the day when we first came in...