Canyons, Mudpots, and Wildlife

We had a very busy first full day in Yellowstone.  After saying good bye to Rudi in the morning, we decided to spend the day seeing all the sites on the Canyon side of the park.  Yellowstone is huge and we knew we wouldn't see it all on this trip.  We decided right off the bat to skip some things.  We did not go all the way north in the park, which means we didn't see Mammoth Hot Springs.  I am sure it would have been cool, but it was a long drive and there was so much to see that was closer.

We went to see the Grand Canyon and falls in the morning.  You can't see it from the road, which is amazing because when you get to it, it is huge and spectacular.  We did some walks on both the north and south rims, so we got lots of amazing views of the canyon and falls.

We decided to take showers at lunch since you had to drive to the showers anyway, so we parked the RV, made lunch and then 3 out of 4 Urbans showered.  Bella was the hold out, and in retrospect it was good.  There was a little girl screaming the whole time in the showers, which would have been impossible for Bella to handle.  

Squeaky clean, we headed out to explore some geo-thermal sites and some wildlife.  We hit the Mud Volcano area and got to see up close everything bubbling up from below.  We also got very close to a bison who was hanging out in the area.  We also got our daily rain (it has rained every day of our trip at some point).

We then decided to try out a short bike ride down a semi-paved road to Natural Bridge. Greg and Bella were on the tandem for the first time. Kellen and I rode our bikes and all and all it was great. Bella didn't want to ride the whole way out and Kellen had a few issues coming back, but overall it was great. We have a ways to go before we can ride any distance together, but it is a start! Natural Bridge was cool and we got an up close view of a fox who sauntered by right before the bridge.

To end the day, we decided to cut over to Norris Geyser Basin to check out the geysers.  It was very impressive, you go out through a small building and your field of vision is overtaken by this huge expanse of geysers and other geo thermal features as gas as the eye can see! We also did a short nature walk to Artists Paint Pos, which was nice but not overly impressive.  The highlights of that walk was the chipmunk who let us get close so Kellen could take some good pictures and Bella who kept asking what would happen if she stepped onto the boardwalk and into one of the geysers.

Long and tiring first day. We rewarded ourselves with milkshakes and cheeseburgers at the soda fountain in the Canyon Resort area and then we called it a day, a day well done!