West Yellowstone, Montana...

After visiting Old Faithful we did more sight seeing and found ourselves across the park from where we were camping. Because it was so late and we knew we wanted to see more on that end of the park the next day, we decided to exit the park and find a campsite in West Yellowstone, Montana. So now the kids have been to Montana twice.

Dinner was pizza from a small little shop in town. One was like a meat lover’s type pizza. The other was called the Montana Special—sausage and SAUERKRAUT! I’d have never thought to put sauerkraut on a pizza. I didn’t end up getting a piece of that, but everyone raved about how good it was. I’m quite certain it was the novelty of it, but we’re going to try it when we go home.

The different types of rock have sparked John Wesley’s interest. He’s been researching all the rock shops in every town we come to in hopes of finding a nice piece of raw turquoise that he can tumble and polish. There was a really nice rock store in West Yellowstone, so we spent the morning perusing the small shops (tourist traps, really) on West Yellowstone’s streets, which remind me of a western-themed Gatlinburg. Cody, Lena, and Jared found cowboy hats (well, Lena’s is technically a cowGIRL hat). William found a stuffed dog that looks like his Anna. MaKenzie discovered a stuffed black bear that she couldn’t do without. She doesn’t normally ask for things, but she really wanted the bear. When I asked her about it, she told me, “It’s like the one we saw, Mommy.” I was so impressed that she remembered that I was more than happy to let her have her bear.

After our shopping excursion, we headed back into the park. Paint pots and more geysers were on the agenda for the day. Our plans were pleasantly delayed by a herd of bison, mostly mommas with their calves, who needed to use the roadway to get where they were going. Of course we didn’t complain about following behind them for several minutes. I almost had more fun watching the kids watch the buffalo than actually watching the buffalo myself, although I must admit those calves are awfully cute.

One little calf had an injured leg (or maybe it was deformed, we couldn’t quite tell what had happened), causing him to be a little slower than the rest of the crowd. I found it sweet that his momma held back and stayed behind with him, knowing it was up to her to protect her little guy. I’m afraid that cute calf, being weaker and slower than the rest of the herd, will end up as dinner for a wolf or mountain lion. We all had a little moment of sadness about that, then remembered that that is the way it’s supposed to be, at least in the animal world.

A little further down the road, there was a gathering of cars, trucks and campers whose drivers and passengers all had their scopes, binoculars and cameras trained on a not-too-distant mountainside. We stopped to join them, visually scouring the landscape, to see what they were seeing. The attraction was a lone coyote, the second we’ve seen, out for his afternoon stroll, probably trying to decide what was going to be on the menu for his dinner.

We eventually DID get to the paint pots and the geysers. (It’s really quite amazing the variety of sights there are here in Yellowstone.) At the paint pots, we happened upon a park ranger who made time to answer a few of our pent-up questions. He told us that there had been some grizzly mommas whose cubs had been born near the area of the paint pots. In fact, the area had been closed until just this week in order to give the bears a little space and to protect the tourists. Recently, with the warmer weather, the bears have moved to higher ground, so they were able to reopen the paint pots area.