A trip to Yellowstone has been on the wish list for awhile, and we finally did that this summer. We left home on a Saturday morning, and spent the night almost exactly halfway to West Yellowstone in Kellog Idaho. We stayed at the Silver Mountain water park, Silver Rapids. This made a great half-way point, except for the multiple fire alarms that went off in the middle of the night.

The 2nd day we arrived in West Yellowstone Mt, and checked into the Worldmark resort where we would stay for the week. West Yellowstone was a great place to stay, the *only* drawback being that it wasn't inside the park. While in the park, we averaged between 120 and 150 miles a day.

On the 1st day in the park, we covered the bottom side of the south loop, which included Old Faithful. We finally made it to Yellowstone Lake where Moira took a dip while Daddy (me) was talking to a Ranger elsewhere. We returned that day on the same route, covering a few spots we missed earlier due to traffic and/or crowds.

Day 2 in the park we were supposed to follow the Thomas' through the park, and we were going to hit the northwest corner of the bottom loop, and drive the top loop in a clockwise direction. That worked until shortly after the 1st stop we made. Karen & Craig found parking at the Artist Paint Pots, and we did not. We found quite a few buffalo outside the entrance road and waited, and waited, and we somehow missed them. It was a great day though, moving from pots to springs, the Sheep Eater cliffs (where we had a picnic lunch), plains/prairies, some crazy rocks that dwarfed the car, a few waterfalls, some canyons, a petrified tree, and ... ah, it was busy, and beautiful. Someone with more skills behind a camera than I would have not wanted to leave.

On the 3rd day we entered the park and did the bottom loop in a clockwise direction. This let us see the north and east sides of this loop, which we hadn't seen yet. This included Canyon Village, and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We also saw a coyote that was hunting we assume field mice in very close proximity to a buffalo that didn't seem to really care. We had a great lunch at the Lake Lodge on Yellowstone Lake. After lunch, we drove back north on the east side of the south loop (got that?), and hit the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Site of the day, a group of Germans wearing grubby leathers riding Harleys.

The 4th day in the park we actually started in town, at a sanctuary for bears. The kids got to go into the bear pens and hide food for the bears, who later came out. We didn't enter the park until later, one of our goals to get a sunset shot from a lookout on the eastside of Lake Yellowstone. We got to the lookout, but the clouds didn't really cooperate.

Our last full day in West Yellowstone we stayed around town, figuring we'd spend enough time in the car driving home the next day. It was a great trip, and when asked, the kids said they preferred it to Disneyland. Yes!