Family Reunion Day 4: Yellowstone

On Thursday, we all headed out early to Yellowstone. Our first stop? Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin. Some members of our party saw Castle Geyser erupting as they entered the parking lot area. After the eruption, we took some family photos.

Old Faithful erupting.

Watching the show.

U and Me with Old Faithful.

Being sworn in as Junior Rangers.

We walked around the Upper Geyser Basin a bit. Here is Castle Geyser, still steaming from its recent eruption.

Another view of Castle Geyser.

Aspen and Sarah with Castle Geyser.

Spasmodic Geyser. It had lots of different places that water would spurt up at various times. It was fun to watch.

A spurt from Spasmodic Geyser.

Me and Matthew. Notice his Junior Ranger patch? It has a geyser on it.

Matthew with Heart Spring.

U with an unlabelled spring. There are so many geothermal features in this area!

So much color!

Anemone Geyser. Me thought it looked really cool and asked U to get some pictures as Me and Megan continued on.

Then it erupted! U tried to call Me back but Me didn't hear. Matthew and U were glad to see the eruption.

Anemone Geyser erupting. Photo by Matthew.

It really has some cool features.

Matthew taking a picture of U taking a picture of Anemone Geyser.

Crossing Firehole River.

Cool looking spring.

Matthew with the river and a spring.

Group hug/walk.

Silly faces!
Marci, Aspen, McKinley, Andrew, Sarah, Luke

After a picnic lunch, we drove to Yellowstone Lake. This view as we came down the mountain was breathtaking!

Playing at the lake.
Brian, Aaron, Lizzie, Ben, Zach, Matthew, Nathan

The kids really enjoyed playing here.

Aspen on a really cool stump.

McKinley, Matthew, Megan and Sarah.
The unfortunate part of this experience was that Matthew got a small pebble embedded in his foot. He complained that his foot hurt after this when he walked but didn't look at it. We discovered the pebble when we got back to our lodging and, with the help of a needle, got it out.

Zach, Quincy, McKinley and Aspen

Add in Josie and Marci

Matthew and Zach at Mud Volcano.

Zach, Grandma and Matthew at Dragon's Mouth Spring. The dragon was still hissing away inside.

Matthew, Me, McKinley, Quincy, Emma, Megan

The kids enjoyed climbing rocks at Brink of the Upper Falls. In fact, Matthew, even having a pebble in his foot, was quite excited to climb around the area.

Grandma and Grandpa with the water pouring around behind them.

We almost lost Grandpa as he fell backwards. Thankfully Grandma didn't let him go that easily!

Another shot of Grandma and Grandpa.

It is a beautiful spot!

Lower Falls from Lookout Point.

Cheryl-Lynn and Megan admire the view.

Another look at the osprey nest. U took this picture with his iPod looking through the binoculars.

Taking a rest.

We stopped by Canyon for dinner before heading back to Ashton. A few of the other cars made other stops on the way back but our didn't. We had quite the loud car (it was a dull roar!) with Megan, Matthew, Nathan, Aaron and Andrew in the back seats.

Matthew and Nathan

Matthew really wanted this picture with his arms.

We couldn't find Sarah for a bit and eventually found her sleeping with Emma in Emma's bed.