Yellowstone Park

In the background, you can see a herd of elk - this was our first wildlife of the trip.

(Besides the Otteson kids) 

Then we went to Firehole Waterfalls - Landon didn't want to venture too close to the edge.

We saw lots of geysers.  Cade & Elise had fun pointing them all out to us.

Next came the biggest geyser we saw - Old Faithful!

It sprays out a lot of water and comes down the hill under the bridge - by the time it got to us, it was still warm - we all had to feel it to make sure.

Next we saw a mother grizzly bear and her two cubs.  This is not the best shot, but this was truly the highlight of our trip.  This is the first time Mom & Dad and everyone else with us has seen live grizzly bears in person.

It was cool!

This was across the road from where the grizzly bears disappeared.

Yellowstone Lake is beautiful.

Another shot of Yellowstone Lake taken from the moving pickup.

Madison River

Derek slowed down so we got another drive by shooting!

A herd of buffalo - we stopped for this shot and got in the back of the pickup.

Taken from Artist's Point - what a gorgeous waterfall!

Some of the tourists just hanging out by the falls - aren't they cool?

Landon took this shot - he got Derek's head in the picture on the 2nd try!

Rod is just deciding where we will go next.

We left Mom & Dad back at the pickup and in wandered these deer - Rod was trying to get a close-up.

Shanell watches that the kids don't get too close to the edge.

All the kids wanted to be with Uncle Derek!

We drove to another waterfall and Rod went down the steep embankment to the edge of the water.  He disappeared for about 15 minutes and we all hoped he was okay - he ended up coming back from the other direction.  This is where we split off and Shanell's family went their way and we headed back home.

On the way, we spotted this bull elk - we were across the river or else we could have gotten a better shot of him.

Then, just a little before getting back to West Yellowstone, we spotted this beautiful bull elk surrounded by his herd - two of the females were across the street from him and he was keeping a close eye on them because there was another bull down the road a ways.  There were tons of people stopped here so the females didn't dare cross the road to join the herd.  It was getting late, so this was our last wildlife we stopped to get pictures of.

It was a wonderful day and I am glad we were able to go!

Thanks Mom & Dad & Derek & Shanell & Rod & Elise & Cade & Landon ! ! !

It was a day to remember!