Yippie for Yellowstone!

So after leaving Bear World, we made our way to the wonderful Yellowstone.
Eric and Allie and been there 2 years prior, but Chaser and I hadn't. So i was very excited to see it. Talk about Beautiful. There was SO much to see and we only gave ourselves 1 day, which, if anyone who's ever been there knows, 1 day is NOT ENOUGH. But since we wanted to visit the Mormon Handcart sites, we could only spend one day in Yellowstone. But don't cry for me, because we're going back next year.

Now, here's the age old question: Did we see Old Faithful???
The answer is: no

Okay, you can cry if you want. But here's why, in one word that we chose to skip it.
CHASE.
The thing about autism is, they "don't like to wait". Which in turn, makes everyone else around them "not like to wait" With Old Faithful, there's no guarantee wait time, which means a grumpy Chase. Also, it was summer vacation, so we knew the place would be packed, and crowds and Chase make Chase grumpy. I didn't want to get grumpy, I knew Eric didn't want to get grumpy, and Allie, well, she's almost 9 which means, she's often grumpy anyway, so we decided to skip good ol' faithful this year.
We are constantly working on Chase's ability to "wait" so we're hoping that next year, Chase will be able to wait amongst the crowds to see good ol' faithful do it's thang. Because Allie had already seen it in the past, I didn't feel bad about skipping it.
One of my fav things we saw was the waterfall. We hiked down to the edge of the waterfall and beheld it's beauty. Now, the hike back up the trail left something to be desired. It was a tad bit tough, but not because I'm outta shape, no no no, it was, um, because the air is thinner in Yellowstone, yeah, yeah, that's it...it's thinner air than they got here in viva las vegas. I just breath better, I guess,  in thicker, more polluted air I think..yeah, that's it. That makes sense, right?

Lower Falls

Some handsome dude

One adorable 8 yr old

The sound of the waterfall freaked Chaser out a bit, he plugged his ears the whole time we were there, but for the pic, we held his hands down. So mean!

Another view

This is how Chase got to go down and back up the trail...lucky duck.

We also took a little hike and saw the Artists Paint Pots.
It was a totally cool place where the ground is super hot and everything liquid boils and sometimes spews itself into the air. It reminded me of 'the bog of eternal stench' from the movie The Labyrinth. Only, it really didn't smell too much...t-h-a-n-k-f-u-l-l-y.

Ok, so this part isn't the 'prettiest' part of Yellowstone, per say, but it was still pretty darn cool to see all the action that goes on there all the time. Check out the steam...now that's hot!

You were warned with warning signs all along the trail to stay on the trail because the ground was so hot around it. So its safe to say we didn't see much wildlife in these here parts.

Aw (:   nothing says love like taking a pic next to some scary hot bubbling clay pools that spewed hot clay from the ground.  *sigh*

Want a better, more scientific, less nerdy than my explanation of the Artists Paint Pots area of Yellowstone, click here. It's really a cool thing, you should read about it, check it out!


I wanna end this post with a few more pics of the beauty that is Yellowstone. Some of these pics, i took and some Allie took. She does pretty good for an 8 yr old, or as she always makes me say, "8 almost 9 yr old".

Looks like I could get in some good fly fishing here...if I ever fly fished, which I never have done in my life, but would like to sometime, because this looks like a perfect spot, like in that Brad Pitt movie a River Runs Through It.

Flower picked for me...aw ;)

Thug Chase with my visor on. Allie took this pic while driving out of Yellowstone. He was pretty much done for the day.

Until we meet again dear Yellowstone....next summer, (for more than just one day unlike this summer), when we decide to take on 'Chase vs Old Faithful.' Who will be conqueror? Chase, always Chase.


P.S. If you've never been to Yellowstone, to thee I say "Go GO GO! (But be sure to stop at Bear World on your way there if you're coming from Idaho because it was so cool to see the bears and you may or may not be able to see a bear in Yellowstone...just some cool buffalo or a grumpy bison and maybe an elk or 2)