Yellowstone - Day Six

     Everyone was tired of being in the car, so we decided to take an easier day of it today. We got up before sunrise and drove down to Hayden Valley to watch the sunrise and search for animals. We did not luck out with the animals, but we did luck out with a gorgeous sunrise! God’s creation is amazing! We came back to the camper and had a nice breakfast. The kids have made friends with the neighbors and enjoyed playing with them for the morning. I took a load of laundry to the laundromat, and we did some gift shop shopping while it was drying. We cooked our lunch here at the camper, and then headed out for the afternoon.

          We didn’t want to drive too far today, so we just went a few miles down the road to Norris Geyser Basin. It is a huge area of geyser activity. I don’t know if I could accurately explain it here, but it looks like something from another planet. The ground is an odd color, and the pools are all different colors. No trees can live here, and there are constantly bubbling and gurgling and steam sounds. It was very interesting and I’m glad we made the stop.

          We wanted to do a hike, but did not have one picked out. We passed a sign for Ice Lake on the way to the basin and decided to give it a try. It was a lovely hike through a pine forest to a lovely mountain lake. We spent a while just exploring the lakeside and forests.

          We came back to the campsite for dinner and decided to drive down to the falls at the canyon area where we are camping. We ended up finding another hike there that we took on spur of the moment. It wound down through the forest and ended up overlooking another waterfall. We had not planned on hiking this hike, so we hadn’t taken anything with us – no backpack, no bear spray, etc. It was a little nerve wracking hiking in the mountains with bears and no supplies. As we came around a bend, I saw something brown go over the side of the hill and was very startled as I thought it might be a bear. Dan went to check it out, and it turned out to just be a mule deer! Funny on me. We did make it back out before dark and were so tired that we went right to bed.