Yellowstone... Day 3

Last day of our trip and probably my favorite. After a stop for our morning coffee we headed to the Canyon Village Visitor center... wanted to catch a new show that was playing there, "Yellowstone land to life" again another awesome movie. Afterwards the kids were antsy to get their Jr Ranger booklet turned in... so that they could earn another patch.

The schedule for today was to view the Canyon area, in the park it's called, "The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone."

And later in the day we hoped to squeeze in Norris Geyser Basin. The last time we visited the park we ran out of time to explore the Canyon Area... I think this is one of my favorite areas of the park. The views leave you breathless... take a look...

The colors... the size... everything was amazing... it felt so "unreal" like we had walked out onto a painting.

Next we headed to the Upper Falls area... loud oh my, the amount of water rushing by... is hard to imagine. As we were taking it all in we noticed an Osprey that was perched on a tree... it took a dive right into the water for a fish... he came up empty handed and circled around again... cool... really cool.

It's hard to see how fast the water it's moving here... I leaned over and got this picture of the water heading over the lower falls.

The next trail was the Lower Falls... it was a trail that dropped 600ft as you went down it... easy going down... breathing hard coming up.

We made it to the bottom...

And looked over the edge... surprised to find snow..

Again the amount of water rushing by... is crazy. I think the numbers were 38,000 gallons of water per second!! Couple more pictures of the area...

Really freaky to think that the only thing protecting you from going over is a chain link fence... kids gripped onto us and we onto them.

Another favorite photo from the area... look at the size of this glacial boulder!!

Loved how the trees just grew around it..

We hit Norris Geyser Basin (a favorite) later in the day... we were tired from the "big hike" so it was nice to walk on the flat boardwalks.

It's not a very popular spot at the park... so it nice to have the quietness as you walk and look. Quiet might not be the best choice of words... for it is never really quiet with two kiddos barreling down the boardwalk... fighting over who gets to use the camera next... and the endless chatter, that's all good in the end but man can they talk sometimes. Few pictures of the area... can tell how tired/sweaty we are??

I handed the camera over to Stewart at Norris... love this picture he got of Ainsley and I chillin' out on the trail..

Late in the day we headed back to Old Faithful for one last "show." We were early so we caught the end of a Ranger program and waited... waited for the next eruption. We had over 30 minutes left to wait... like I said earlier 5 year olds don't wait too well... took silly pictures of Walker to make the time go by fast... these next few just crack me up... so him... so silly!

Finally Old Faithful's time arrived... it was so cool to listen to the kids excitement and squeals as it shot higher and higher in the air. It was the best way to end our Yellowstone trip.