What It Might Look Like to Bike from San Francisco to Long Beach

Just a little bike ride...

day six of vacation: the end of our stay

Our final night in the park was pretty eventful: rain and then HAIL! It was early on in the night time when the hail began and it lasted for quite a while. It surprised me how loud it was, even on a tent. 

VACATION: day five

July 29. Are you ready? Can you believe it? All these beautiful views!

 --Upper Falls

 Bicycles! Wouldn't it be fun to ride in Yellowstone? Amongst the bison?! Oh, look-- do you see the one in this picture? He wants a ride too...

 --Yellowstone Falls   I can't remember when I ever saw so many waterfalls all in one vacation! 

 I love this spontaneous picture! It shows just how we were all feeling at the time...er, something like that anyway! 

 On our way down the Uncle Tom's Trail: 328 Stairs down to see a view of the Lower Falls. The history of this trail is that it used to be steps along with a rope ladder that people held on to and climbed down the side of the mountain. They say even ladies in fancy dresses climbed down holding on to the rope! (Oh, and then 328 Stairs back UP!!)

 Double Rainbow!

 E&J and the Lower Falls

 Take careful notice of the stairs. You can see right through them. Ugh. 

 Inspiration Point

 Okay, so this picture is pretty, but it is hard to see what I want you to see here. We decided to take another trail to see the Grand Prismatic Spring-- remember that really cool one that I said I have even better pictures of? So we are on our way to the trail and you can see in this picture the steam that is coming up off the ground. Some of the steam even has a blue or blue/green hue. It was so amazing!

 Check out this trail! It is not an official trail yet, but rumor has it that they do have plans to put an official trail right here. Anyway, here we are jumping over logs and sort of making our own switch backs in order to get the view:

 I can hear the collective "oohs and aaahs" right now and yes, it was even better than this picture shows. This spring (did I say this already?) is 200 feet in diameter-- huge! 

 Here is a picture for you to see how large it is in comparison to people standing there on the boardwalk. See?! Huge. 

 I love how Chloe and Payton are walking together. And I love how Chloe's hair is flowing out behind her here.

Receiving their Junior Ranger Badges 

 Oh, but our evening is NOT over yet! We're on our way to find bears and wolves! (Or at least try, anyway!!) A big THANK YOU to Mark for all the binoculars we got to borrow-- and also the really cool big telescope! 

 Looking for wildlife

 Aaaaand here we are with the Wolf Watchers. Yes, a real group of people who come out every night to look for wolves. It was exciting-- and we even did spot one! Later this night after the rain and hail Eric and I even heard a wolf howl! 

There's a wolf down there...somewhere...

Don't worry, they'll find him.

v.a.c.a.t.i.o.n. p.a.r.t. f.o.u.r.

July 28. A day like any other day, except that we are still hanging out in Yellowstone. Yay! So really, the days are not like any other day. Especially because THIS is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!