Yellowstone, Day 2, Driving the Loop

 

 

In an electronic age, there is nothing that makes my mama heart sing more than seeing the kids choose to play cards together and laugh together instead of crying out "Can we use your hot spot?" the moment the sun creeps over the horizon. Today was a day of admiring geological hot spots instead of electronic ones, of walking instead of sitting, and laughing more than squabbling.

We loved the bubbling mud pots, fumaroles, and less famous geysers. We stopped for scenic overlooks and took way too many pictures besides waterfalls. We hiked down and up trails. Some of us admired a lone petrified tree that had not been chipped away by thoughtless souvenir seekers. Some of us declared that they could admire the stone tree quite nicely from the parking lot.

We braked for wildlife, nearly causing wrecks in our sightings, and braked for stumps and shadows that may have possibly been bears (but weren't). We saw so many bison that we started saying, "oh, it's just bison" when we saw cars lining up by the roadside. (Just yesterday, we were that family). Today, we are the family trying buffalo burgers.

The morning's fresh enthusiasm

Lost count on the bison talley. A bison? Snore.

(By the evening of our second day)

We ate ice cream, got too much sun on our pale-skinned faces, and refilled our water bottles at the eco-friendly water filling stations they have inside of gift stores. We browsed in said gift shops and were content to take home memories. We stamped activity books like passports. We identified elk, pronghorn deer, mule deer, raven, magpies and chipmunks, but are still trying to figure out a camouflaged snake. (See below)

These two have grown so much in the three years that we have loved them, and the two years that we have been family.

This was not our rental car, but we felt like we were kickin' it old style with the see America family vacation!

 

We badly sang parts of songs in cars and made up collaborative stories that always seemed to return to the subject of gas. We rolled down windows to ascertain if the noxious fumes were from within our car, or from within the sulfurous bowels of the earth. We punched each other at the sight of punch-buggies to let off travel steam, much like the terrain around us.

P.U. Whodunit?

 

We were quieted by the mesmerizing sounds of rushing river waters. We marveled at rock slides and forests that were reseeded by the devastating forest fires of 1988. We were fascinated by trees that miraculously grow out of boulders in the middle of rivers. We were awed by the power of water over time that can carve a canyon out of rock. Everywhere we turned the heavens cried out glory, and we are thankful to have spent a Sabbath day together in Yellowstone.

 

I could look at these forever.