Yellowstone - Fall Break 2018

We decided to go to Yellowstone for Fall Break.  I was up a little before 9:00 to pack up everything and was hoping to leave by 10--optimistic, I know.  Around 10-ish I had everything ready to go and the boys were mostly read.  Clint on the other hand....  While we were waiting I ran Griffin to the library and returned to the grocery store for a few more snacks that I decided to pick up.

Finally, around 11:45 we left town....that's about right for us. haha

We hadn't been on the road long when the van started making a rumbly/vibration noise.  We stopped to make sure the car top carrier was on tight and started up again.  That didn't fix it.  We stopped in Pocatello and left the carrier at Ethan's house thinking it was the problem, but we still noticed the noise as we left his house so we found the nearest Big O and stopped in to have them check over the tires.  Clint had just had new tires installed.  Sure enough, one of the back tires had not been tightened up completely and was loose!  Lucky we hadn't any real trouble.  They tightened everything up and we hit the road again.

We finally made it to West around 5, after a quick stop in Idaho Falls for gas and lunch.  We made it to Old Faithful right in between eruptions, so we decided to head out so we could do some fishing before it got dark.  We went to the Firehole to fish.  The road was closed for the season so we parked at the entrance of the loop where the gate was closed and walked to the fishing hole.

  

We fished until dark and then headed back into West for the night.  We had dinner at The Gusher.  The food report....the BLT was yummy, the pizza was ok, and the chilli was bleh.

Friday morning I was up at 8:30 and looking up ideas for the day while I waited for everyone else to get up.  We didn't really pre-plan this trip.  Finally everyone else was up and getting ready a little after 9 and we were out the door before 11 am.  Our first stop was at the Gibbon River to fish.  We stopped at a couple of different spots.

Carson caught a nice one!

Next we headed up north to the Boiling River.  Clint usually fishes while we hang out in the hot springs.  He's missing out!  We love soaking in Boiling River!

After the boiling river we stopped in Mammoth for ice cream at the general store and to look around a bit.  We don't spend as much time around the Mammoth area as we do other places, so it's always fun to check out it's unique features like the liberty cap and the mineral terraces.

On our trip back out of the north we stopped to fish on the Yellowstone just below the Lehardy rapids even thought there was SNOW on the ground.  The roads were a little icy and we even saw a truck that had slid off!

Trying to get pics of these two. haha

We headed back to West for another night and stopped in for some dinner at the Slippery Otter.

Saturday morning we checked out of the hotel then headed back into the park for a few hours before we made our trip home.  We drove up to Norris Geyser Basin....also an area we haven't stopped at in a while but decided we had to because lately Steamboat Geyser has been going off quite a bit more frequently than usual, so, you never know, you might get lucky!  It is the tallest geyser in  Yellowstone but is completely unpredictable and will go years without erupting.  We found out it had gone off just 5 days earlier.

Had to check out this cool structure that we saw near the parking area.

Stopping to see some of the thermal features along the boardwalks.

 The view down into the basin.

Steamboat Geyser

Then it was time to hit the road home.  Always a fun time in Yellowstone!