Yellowstone

Woke up 6:00 am, drove 6 hours, found camp, headed for some geysering.

We spent the first day in West Yellowstone.

Petrified tree that was still standing up. Pretty cool! (i told Jordan to strike a pose)

Family portrait a little down stream from Tower Falls
I cant remember the name of this place, i think maybe Magna or Mana or something along those lines. There was a big tour of teenagers there and it reminded me a lot of my tour only we actually wore more then underwear (referring to their short short short short shorts).

Later that evening we went to a river side hot springs. We got there about eight and it "closed" at nine. We brought our Stew to cook in the hot water while we soaked so we could eat after. It started pouring rain so everyone else left. It was really fun sitting in the river watching the thunder storm (we called them our fire works because it was the 24th of July). Around nine thirty a ranger came and kicked us out. The funny part is that there was a sign that read " no food" but of course that never stopped my dad from anything so we still cooked our food and while the ranger wasn't watching he wrapped up the cans in our towels and we carried them back to the car with out them noticing. When it came time to eat the warm stew was more like cold dog food. Not the best meal of my life.

The second day we went into Canyon. Dad had to make about a thousand phone calls so we stayed and ate our lunch at the general store there.
We visited Upper Falls
and lowerand saw some mud pots (my dad's favorite). The one you can see here is actually "off the map". We discovered a trail a couple years ago that only rangers are aloud to take that leads to one of the coolest mud pots in the park, although it doesn't really look like it in this picture. That night we went back to camp and all did our own little thing waiting for dinner. I went to bed super early because i felt really sick.
The third day we went to Old Faithful. We didn't have to wait very long for Old Faithful to go off but it wasn't that great of a show. Old Faithful can go off anywhere from 1-5 min, we got the 1 minute show.

This geyser went off for about five minutes and then gave us an encore. One of my favorites.

we also had to opportunity to see a geyser erupt that hadn't since 2006. That's what i call being in the right place at the right time:)
After lunch at the Old Faithful Inn everyone dropped dead....besides me.

I'm not sure if it was that day but we went swimming in the Fire Hole river. Which is pretty much the only reason why i go to Yellowstone. Its this amazing swim hole that has really warm water because so many geysers feed into it up stream. I pretty much worship this place.The last day was pretty much killer because it was the ride home but we were taking the "scenic route" home. Which is really beautiful, passing the Tetons and Jackson Hole but also adds about five hours on to the drive. After five, Jordan and were just about to go out of our minds when i luckily remembered that i had brought a book on CD. I know what your thinking but it turned out to be a life saver. The book is called The Life of Pi. If you haven't read it, i would highly recommend it.

All in all it was a very successful trip. I was really glad to have my mom there since she doesn't get to come on a lot of the trips we get to go on. It was definitely a different experience having her there, but a really fun one.