Everyone else was packing up the cars getting ready to leave while I quickly hopped in the shower. I was ready to go like 10 minutes later to find Mark, Téa and Piper waiting for me while the other two cars took off to the Park. We planned to meet up with everyone up at the Falls area in the Canyon Village area of the park, or so we thought. We drove around and finally found Lower Falls but couldn't find my dad's truck or Darron's minivan anywhere. We drove back to the Canyon Village Visitor Center and tried finding their cars there but struck out as well. So, how do you find people in a place where there is spotty cell service? We gave Darron one of our two-way radios, so he had that but they only worked when in close range. We drove through every parking lot we could find and kept calling out on the radio. Still didn't work. I was so done trying to find everyone so Mark, Téa, Piper and I headed to a place called Artist Point to start sight seeing! At this point, Calista was still with Darron somewhere so we don't have many pictures of her from today.
This place was beautiful! The area is called Canyon Village for a reason. It felt like a small Grand Canyon inside Yellowstone. Artist Point was a great viewpoint of the canyon and it's also the starting point of a short hike we wanted to do.
Look at all that green!
And in a different direction you have these awesome white/yellow/orange cliffs (as seen behind Téa).
You can kind of see the waterfall right in the middle of this picture. That would be Lower Falls.
The background totally looks fake, right? Like a backdrop.
Téa has been so good at helping Piper on this trip. Whenever Piper would get tired of walking she would distract her with stories or point out cool things to see. She's a good big sister. They sure do love each other.
The girls insisted Mark and I get in a picture. Don't I look thrilled?
The view was just unreal. Here's a close up of Lower Falls from our vantage point at Artist Point.
I actually got a little bit of cell service out on Artist Point and received a text from my mom asking where we were. I tried to respond but my texts weren't going through. We were about to start the hike when another text came through saying she had found our car and were waiting in the parking lot. I headed back to the parking lot and we all found each other. Hurray! If only they had just waited 10 minutes for me to get ready, we wouldn't have wasted half the morning searching for each other. Oh well.
We found out that while we were searching parking lot after parking lot, the others were waiting around the Visitors Center and headed inside to see what was there. I still don't know how we missed Dad's huge white truck but we sure didn't see it. Since everyone was at Artist Point they all got out to see the view. This was a great place for a quick lunch, too.
Next stop was the viewing spot for Upper Falls. We did a little more research and found that Uncle Tom's Trail was going to be too much for Piper. We left Mark and Téa at Artist Point to start their hike on the trail and they would end at Upper Falls, where Piper and I would wait for them.
Mark documented the hike with a few pictures. Reading up about the trail afterwards, we found that it's only 0.7 miles but there are 328 steps to climb on metal stairs that are bolted into the side of the canyon. Some parts of the hike were paved but the stairs were hard.
Here's Téa at the start of the hike.
A long portion of the stairs. I'm still amazed Téa made it up those. She hates heights! So does Mark, for that matter.
This kid loves hiking. I would have loved to see the views on this hike, but Piper and I had our own fun.
More beautiful views of Lower Falls.
Father and daughter had a great hike and loved seeing the Falls close up. Téa was kind of bummed, though that we couldn't all go together as a family. There's just no way Piper would have wanted to do those stairs, hanging on the side of the canyon wall!
This is the view the opposite direction from Lower Falls. The colors and scenery are amazing. There is so much beauty on this earth created for us to enjoy. That's why I love sharing it with my family.
It's totally picture overload, but who cares. Waterfalls are mesmerizing to watch and fun to photograph.
More amazing pictures of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.
While Mark and Téa hiked, Piper and I had fun. We found lots of cool trees to explore, like this one.
We stopped Calista long enough to take a picture before she hopped in the Woolley's car to take off again. This would be the only picture in the park of her for the day! She was just having too much fun with Alex and her other cousins.
By this point, Grant was getting tired so VaLynn and Grant started back to the cabin with my parents in the truck. There were a few more stops we wanted to make before heading out of the park. After two days in the park you really don't find a bison on the side of the road abnormal, or weird. Funny how we got so used to seeing them everywhere.
Our last exploration area was the Mud Volcano area.
Probably the coolest thing here was the Dragon's Mouth Spring. It looked and sounded like a dragon breathing.
It totally looks like smoke coming out of a dragon's nose or mouth.
We watched for a long time, listening to the loud 'breathing and roaring' sounds.
Mud Cauldron.
Black Dragon Cauldron.
This is the Mud Volcano. Notice a theme here with the names? Not super creative with the names.
Almost done with Mud Volcano Area. I think Darron was getting tired. Ha!
Dragon's Mouth Springs ended up being the last touristy thing we did in the park. Darron's older three kids (Isaac, Alex and Anna) wanted to do some fishing. The original plan was for them to go on a 2 mile hike to a certain lake or river (can't remember) but by the time we were done with park sites, the kids were kind of tired so Darron said he'd find a place somewhere close by for them to fish. Calista did not want to be left out (or maybe it's because she didn't want to leave Alex!) so she tagged along and Darron taught her to fish. She definitely wasn't going to learn it from Mark and me!
On our way to the park exit we drove along Yellowstone Lake. It was just beautiful. We stopped a few times to take it all in.
Mark tried out his panorama setting on his phone. Not too bad.
We ended up finding Darron and the kids fishing along the Madison River, which follows the road for a good portion of the way from the park entrance to the Madison Junction. I had to stop and take pictures to document Calista's first fishing experience!
Cute girls fishing. And the water was so blue and beautiful.
As we headed out of the park and back to the cabin we stopped by the one and only grocery store to pick up some fresh produce for dinner we were in charge of cooking. While I made dinner the kids showered and then hung out on the deck. All the adults reminded the kids to put shoes on before going out there. Well, wouldn't you know there's always one kid who doesn't listen? And it had to be mine this time.
Calista ran around on the wooden deck barefoot. It wasn't until halfway through dinner she noticed her feet were hurting. Turns out there's a reason we told her to push shoes on. She had at least 30-40 tiny slivers on the bottoms of both feet. Then it was Uncle Darron to the rescue! Not that it takes a podiatrist to remove so many slivers in your feet, but he jumped in right away and I let him.
Dinner was yummy, tummies were full and the kids crashed hard after a fun day of seeing more of Yellowstone Park. Tomorrow should be another fabulous day!
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