Day 7

It was another beautiful morning at our Montana cabin and the little guys wanted to go greet the horses in the field just outside our front door.  The family on whose ranch we're staying goes to rodeos every weekend.  We haven't met the family, but we've met the horses!

Kiss kiss!

 After everyone was ready to roll, we headed out the door and back into Yellowstone.  Today we first headed south to stop at the Artist's Paint Pots.  This little stop was a good place to see a different kind of geothermal feature that we have't seen yet - mudpots.  These were really bizarre - they were bubbling blobs of creamy smooth mud.  Just fascinating to watch!

Along the way - a herd of elk

Emmy in front of a hot spring

Mudpot

As we were driving down the road again, we spied a couple of bison by the road just hanging out.  I always pictured the  bison in huge herds roaming the open plains, after all, that's how it was in Dances with Wolves so it must be true, right?  But so far we've mainly seen individual or pairs of bison hanging out in the woods.

Big Daddy and his lady friend

One of the things that Emmy and London have been most looking forward to on this trip is seeing a wolf.  They are quite fascinated with wolves right now and they know from a report that London did in school last year that Yellowstone was the first place that they were reintroduced in the mid-1990s and consequently is one of the best places to maybe see one.  All our eyes have been peeled for a sighting since we've been here, but no one has *definitively* seen one yet.  (I say this because Grandpa thinks he saw one lying under a tree, but it could not be confirmed by anyone else.)

So today we were going to make sure they saw one by going to the Wolf and Grizzly Center in West Yelllowstone.  They were rewarded with up close sightings of several wolves and some grizzly bears (which we haven't seen either).

They were a little sleepy since it was the afternoon of a warm day, but they were still beautiful to see!

These guy were behind a chain link fence, but I think the photos turned out pretty well.

The grizzlies were entertaining too!

After our tour of the Wolf and Grizzly Center, we headed out to one of more famous Yellowstone sights, the Grand Prismatic Spring.  The colors from this hot spring are intense and absolutely beautiful.  So surreal!

Driving  back to the cabin we passed some elk just grazing along the road...

That night Cannon, London and Emmy set us up a nice bonfire for some roasted marshmallows under  the incredibly full, busy, starry sky.  We saw lots of shooting stars, some satellites racing by and Grandpa, Grammie and Stevie even saw a colorful shooting object they think was a piece of falling space junk.