Yellowstone-Part 2

Friday was much warmer and I think the favorite day of the two.  We went to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, the Upper and Lower Falls, and Mammoth Hot Springs.  Definitely another full day of driving and sight seeing.  We saw 2 bisons crossing the road on our way to the canyon.  The kids really enjoyed the close up view as they were literally an arms length from the car.   The canyon was amazing and the falls were fun to hike down and see.  We drove up to Mammoth and had a picnic lunch right below the hot springs.  Elk were just across the street lounging in the shade in front of a few buildings.  Funny that we drove all over Yellowstone, over 150 miles, and the only time we saw elk were on the front porch of these buildings.  We didn't enjoy the hot springs as much as the falls and the canyon but we still walked along the boardwalk and saw all the springs.  We were planning on driving through the Grand Tetons on our way home but with the road closures we would have had to take a 85 mile detour to access the road to get there.  After all the driving we already did it wasn't a hard decision to skip it.  We ended up stopping at Andy's parents in Honeyville on our way home and spent a few hours with them.  Yellowstone was a different vacation than we've ever taken with our kids but it was fun to be together and to see new things and the visit with grandparents was icing on the cake.