Yellowstone National Park Day on

We decided to sleep in today as yesterday was a pretty stressful day. As we entered the South Gate of Yelllowstone, our check engine light came on. Talk about nervousness. This was my greatest fear. All I could think about was the truck climbing the elevation never before tested on this vehicle and getting stranded on a 2 lane road. Praise God we made it to Grant Village and pulled into a service station....yes there is service station in the park...many of them to be exact! The guy told us how many times he sees this...blamed it on the higher elevations of Yellowstone but offered to run a diagnostic for a mere $40...no thanks. A little less stressed, we continued through the park but feeling less adventuresome, we went to West Yellowstone where we discovered a neat town full of hotels and campgrounds. We made our way to the West Yellowstone KOA where they pack you in these little campsites.....nothing like PA state parks but the view is 100 times better.

Our first full day in Yellowstone proved to be as amazing as anticipated!! We started the day with OLD FAITHFUL......Wow!!!! We got there and only had to wait a few minutes for the erruption!! Beautiful and breathtaking!!! We toured the the Old Faithful Inn and found some souveniors for the kids. Next, we headed to Geyser Basin(after a few heated words due to wrong turns). Wow...again Although, the kids could not appreciate the intricacy of the these geysers formed so long ago, we found out that some of the mud pots were the result of a 1959 earthquake in Montana. Some young structures and some very old.....God's creation is amazing!
We even saw bear tracks and elk tracks in the outer edges of the geysers. They feed there in the winter b/c the temp. of the geysers allow them to find vegetation! Cool fact,huh?

All in all, it was a great day....Beth was a little grumpy but then again it has been 1 full week with kids 24-7 trapped in a truck or a camper with little time to have a peaceful trip to the bathroom!