Happy Fathers Day

(Posting for Sunday, June 15th)

I can’t imagine a better way to spend Fathers Day…

After a light breakfast at our cabin, we headed over to Gull Point Drive on Lake Yellowstone for a little fishing. The weather was great – temps in the high 50’s, lots of sun, hardly a cloud in the sky. We all gave it our best effort, but after an hour or so, all we had managed to catch was a few sticks. Taylor was really into it and probably would have lasted a couple of more hours – she’s turning out to be the real fisherman of the group. Trey was more interested in the black volcanic sand that creates the beach around Lake Yellowstone. Trey’s been fascinated with a sand box since he could crawl.

After stowing our fishing gear, we headed over to the picnic area for a quick lunch. We were stalked by several birds and chipmunks looking to steal something from our table, but we finished lunch without incident. After lunch we headed on through Hayden Valley to Canyon. At Canyon, we checked out Artist Point and the great view of the Lower Falls on the Yellowstone River. We also hiked a bit along the south rim trail and caught a brief ranger program on the geology of the canyon. We headed over to the north rim an hiked down to the brink of the upper falls – you feel like you’re right on top of the waterfall – such a massive force of nature. The roaring is so intense it’s hard to describe.

After getting our fill of the canyon and waterfalls, we made a stop at the Canyon ranger station. The kids finished their requirements to become junior rangers, so they had a brief “swearing in” ceremony and were awarded their junior ranger patches by one of the rangers on duty. We all walked over to the general store and had ice cream to celebrate.

Since we had a lot of daylight left, we made the quick trek over to Norris geyser basin and walked the 2 mile loop around all of the various thermal features. If you’ve never been to Yellowstone, you probably don’t have an appreciation for how smelly some of these thermal areas can be – the sulfur tends to produce a rotten egg smell that is omnipresent. As you can probably imagine, with an 8 and 10 year old on board, the “fart” jokes have been about as omnipresent as the sulfur smell…

After wrapping up in Norris, we decided to head into West Yellowstone, MT to grab some dinner. We made it to West Yellowstone sometime after 7pm and grabbed dinner at the Outpost Restaurant on main street. We enjoyed more good stick to your ribs food – burgers, country fried steak, pasta and salads. Everyone was stuffed when we left.

As we came back into the park, we saw a huge bald eagle near its nest along the road. We snapped some great shots. If you’re a fan of the Muppets, you’ll be happy to know that the eagle we spotted looked just like Sam the Eagle from all of the Muppet movies… After passing the eagle, we came upon a herd of buffalo crossing the road. The herd was pretty large – 50 or so, with lots of calves. Instead of just crossing the road, this head decided to walk down the middle of the road for a mile or so holding up traffic. We were right behind the herd, so we followed patiently along until the last buffalo was safely across the road. As we worked our way back through the park at dusk and into the evening, we saw hundreds of buffalo milling about – lots of calves, some makes fighting with each other, others rubbing against trees to get their winter fur off. It was a very bright full moon, which made the night even more magnificent – especially as we drove past the various geyser basins near Old Faithful.

We finally arrived back at our cabin around 11pm and got everyone off to bed. It’s been an incredibly full day and everyone is beat, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a Fathers Day I won’t soon forget…