The Herbst Family: Yellowstone 2011

A few weeks ago, we took our little family to visit Yellowstone National Park. It has been a long time since Mike or I have been there and we've never taken our kids. Just a few hours from Grandma Herbst's house in Idaho, we decided to take advantage of visiting the park this year. The first few days of warm weather this June, we lucked out and not to mention that it was so beautiful and amazing. We stayed in West Yellowstone in a little hotel and entered the park each day with an plan. Two of the mornings we were delayed in a long line of traffic because of the buffalo walking up and down the middle of the roads, but the kids loved seeing all the animals.We saw dozens of buffalo, a few elk, deer, and even a gray wolf darted across the road in front of us and yes, we saw a glimpse of a momma bear with 2 cubs.

Firehole Basin

Upper view of "Lower Falls"

Looking over the railing at "Lower Falls"

Old Faithful was as good as I remember

We saw it explode 2x's in 90 min! This view is from the new visitor's center

It was great. We were only there for 3 1/2 days, but were told by the forest rangers that because of the wet spring these last few months that it was greener than ever, more wildflowers than ever and even all the geysers, mud pots and were more active. My favorite sight was when we hiked to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and to see the "Lower Falls". Jaron loved seeing all the buffalo and it was hilarious to hear him try to pronounce that word. After purchasing a small stuffed animal of a buffalo, for his souvenir, he now can say...buff..a..fell..ellow.

On the last day, we drove down out of the park from the South Entrance and spent and extra few days in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We took the kids horseback riding and to visit the Bar J Wranglers. They laughed at the cowboy poetry, music and stories. They loved the cowboy dinner and eating on tin plates and cups. It was a great day!