Big Springs and Yellowstone

We had a wonderful (but exhausting!!) day at Yellowstone yesterday, day five of our Idaho vacation. We stopped at Big Springs on our way to Yellowstone, which is always a huge hit with everyone. The fish are humongeous and beautiful. This picture really doesn't do them justice. The larger ones are more than a foot long, probably closer to 18" and just beautiful. There's no fishing at this bridge and people bring bread to feed the fish (and muskrats, and unfortunately the seagulls have driven off the ducks that are usually hanging around) so these are big, calm fish.

And there's a resident muskrat family that is quite charming. This is one of the parents. The seagulls didn't even try to mess with him. What good swimmers these animals are! It was fascinating to watch them.

Ryan and Gillian (and the grandparents) had a great time. Ryan looked so cute in this hat--it's my Mom's, but we were able to cinch it down to fit his rather large head. He was so good about wearing it, which is what amazed me.


I took a large number of photos (like 145) and I won't post most of them here. (Aren't you happy I'm not going to? )

One of the things I really wanted to do on this trip to Yellowstone was to go to Mammoth. I'm not sure how long it's been since I've bene there but it's been a long time. It was smaller than I remembered (and I'm a lot bigger/taller now) but still very impressive!

This is a shot looking almost straight down at one of the many tiers at one of the terraces at Mammoth.

And a shot from farther away:

One of the things I miss about the West is the LIGHT. It's totally different in Oklahoma, and every time I come back to the West it just blows me away.

In this picture Ryan has just finished a chocolate-covered chocolate bar (also known as Dips, granola bars with chocolate on the outside) and is wearing it on his face and hands. Gillian is trying to get away from him as he's pretending to wipe his hands on her. They may be young but they're already good at tormenting each other. In actuality, they were having a great time.

And a family shot. This was actually before Ryan got to the end of his chocolate bar--you can see just a bit of it on his chin.


These nice red marks are my souvenirs from Saturday's visit to the campsite up near Spencer, Idaho. I have no idea what bit me but it's been itchy for days and now they just look terrible. Thank goodness they don't itch any more!! Hopefully they won't scar. Some of the other people who were there also have bites, but I get the award for the worst looking ones. This picture was taken five days after I got bitten.


After Mammoth we sprinted (figuratively) down to Old Faithful and got there in time to have dinner at "the Ham Store," which is what my parents have always called the Hamilton Store, which has a neat "knotty porch." I didn't get a picture, but it's not something that you'd be able to build today.

And of course here's the requisite picture of Old Faithful:

That's all the pics I'll bore you with today. :-)

Tomorrow is our last day since we'll have to leave early Saturday morning to make it to Salt Lake to catch our flight home. I'll be glad to be home, but I've had such a great time I'm not ready for tomorrow to be the last day!

On the knitting front, I got no knitting done yesterday and about three rounds finished on my spiral doily today. Silly me, I actually thought I might have it finished and blocking by now. Hahahahahaha!!!