Day 6- Hill Family Adventure

Day 6 began by getting to the park just before 7 in the morning. We made our way up to Mammoth Hot Springs. First things first, we had to swear in our Junior Rangers. We could have done this the second day because of how fast they filled in their booklets.

Afterwards, we met Park Ranger, Kaluna who reminded us of Miss Anna.

She had us awaken our senses and passed out paint chips and close our eyes and sniff the air. We toured the Upper Terrace.

 Our favorite was a newly formed terrace that began 7 years ago.










The Lower Terrace with Liberty Cap, Devil's Thumb and Palette Terrace were beautiful. We sat down and sketched out our interpretations.

Lunch was wonderful at the historic Mammoth Dining room. I had a bison burger salad and Stephen had an amazing Chicken Sandwich with goat cheese and red bell pepper aioli.

Next we changed clothes and headed down to the Boiling River. We walked about 1/2 a mile to arrive at a spot in the river where the hot spring flowed into the river. Evidentially the elk liked that spot as well.

They were not afraid of us at all. What I was afraid of was the thunderstorm building and Stephen's feet. The rest of us had some sort of River shoes but Stephen didn't.

I waded up the river, got out, walked around the hot spring to get his shoes so he didn't have to walk back down the river. By the time I got to his shoes it began to rain. The kids joined me and Stephen and I had a miscommunication. He thought I took his stuff with me and headed back but I had left them there for him and he didn't see them.

We walked back to the car in the hail and we got almost back to the trailhead where we waited under the protection of some trees. Stephen met us with no shoes in hand....let's skip the rest and laugh about it later.

We drove back down to Norris Geyser Basin next. Of them all, Norris is probably the best, especially Porcelain Basin. So beautiful and expansive. We saw our first geyser blow. Vixen was a little one but a rare one to see.

Vixen Geyser

Steamboat Geyser is the biggest in the park, but isn't on a schedule.

Again we were dodging the rain and we did both the Porcelain and Back Basin just before the rain began.  We also made a very quick stop at Gibbon Falls.

Back in West Yellowstone we grabbed some trout and made an incredible Pistachio/Parmesean Crusted Trout for dinner.

Kids were worn out and passed out quick! Another great day, mostly.


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