Today we celebrated Lindsey’s 12^th birthday in Yellowstone National Park.  Much to her chagrin and frequent requests we did not go horseback riding today.  Instead, we got up early to drive around Yellowstone in search of wildlife.  During our day we did see some pronghorns, male deer, bison and male elk.

After our wildlife search we returned to Mammoth Hot Springs to see the springs and the results of the decades of spring activity.  From there we traveled to the Norris Geyser Basin to see the Constant Geyser and happened to be there when the Whirligig Geyser went off.  We also walked down to the Steamboat Geyser which the largest geyser in the world when it does go off (up to 300 feet), even larger than Old Faithful , but not as regular.  It is hard to believe that a large portion of Yellowstone is the old top of a volcano, hence all of the thermal features.

In an effort to take a break from our Yellowstone driving and to add an additional state to our trip we decided to head out the west gate of Yellowstone and have lunch in West Yellowstone, Montana.  We found a nice BBQ place, did some tourist shopping and found an excellent ice cream shack, The City Creamery.  This little shack makes its own ice cream right on site (they had a batch turning right next to the shack).  It was delicious, hard ice cream that tasted delicious and did not melt quickly.  I highly recommend the double chocolate orange!

The final stop for the day was the Old Faithful area.  We checked in to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, the newest lodge in the park.  Even though it was built in 1999 I think they still wanted you to have a rustic experience, so there is no air conditioning.  The room was nice, but the small window in the room and the oscillating fan they provided did not cool the room off at night.  You can see our experience at Old Faithful at http://youtu.be/S39kfuTEKO8.

To celebrate Lindsey’s birthday we went for dinner at the Old Faithful Inn.  We had a very enjoyable and delicious meal complete with the wait staff singing their own version of the happy birthday song to Lindsey.  With my dinner I enjoyed a tasty beer: Moose Drool Brown Ale.  Amazingly, Kelsey was thrilled to finally get a glass of skim milk.

This morning we awoke in Cody, WY to a cloudy sky.  As we headed out of town we encountered our first rain of our trip.  It was just a light rain that did not last long.  One funny thing happened as we left town.  Kelsey was trying to take a picture of the rodeo area where we were last night when a sprinkler came through the window and hit her in the head.  We covered 139 miles as we traveled to and spent our first afternoon in Yellowstone National Park.

The scenery in Yellowstone is spectacular.  Many times we looked at the beauty before us and said that there is absolutely no way a picture could capture what we were seeing.  We spent the afternoon traveling through the northern part of the park.  We had lunch looking out over Yellowstone Lake (the largest lake at this elevation), viewed the Mud Volcano (very interesting thermal activity with sulfur gas included.  Lindsey wanted to know why nature could not have chosen a better scent like vanilla?!?), hiked down to see the upper and lower canyon falls (this included going down and then back up 328 steps) and a final stop at the Tower Falls.  Along the way we did see some more bison and a black bear.

We are spending the night in a cabin at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel & Cabins.  Unlike our cottage in the Badlands, this cabin was built back in 1938.  It has all of the basics: two queen beds and a private bathroom.  There is no air conditioning, but the weather here is Yellowstone is cooler.  The car thermometer stated that we had an enjoyable day in the mid to high 70’s.

This evening after dinner we walked up to the hotel lobby to play some cards before heading to bed.  We came out of the hotel at 10:00 p.m. to find a bison having an evening snack on the front yard!  It was neat to see, but nobody wanted to take a flash photo and disturb it.

And the winning quote of the day was spoken by Kelsey as we were all getting a little tired in the afternoon.  She said, “We have not even reached the West coast and I am already sick of you!”  This has not been her attitude throughout the trip and we were able to turn things around with a short nap in the car and some ice cream.  I enjoyed the Huckleberry ice cream.

Today was a long travel day from Custer State Park, SD to Cody, WY (411 miles).  We decided to look for some additional wildlife before leaving Custer State Park by driving around the wildlife loop.  During our drive we came across a mule deer, a few pronghorns (similar to antelopes), bison (one which walked right next to our minivan), prairie dogs, burros (one which visited Karen – see the video at ( http://youtu.be/UxwVGypdPRE ) and white-tailed deer.  FYI – Custer State Park has the largest herd of bison in the United States.

Since we were in the neighborhood we swung by the Crazy Horse monument that is still under construction.  Due to our time constraints we did not enter the park, but saw it from the information booth outside the gate.  It has a long way to go and is being built completely with private funds.  When completed, it will be the largest, and quite amazing, stone sculpture in the United States.

Once we arrived into Cody, WY several hours later we had a chance to check into our hotel quickly before heading out for the evening.  We went to the Cody Cattle Company for a chuck wagon dinner and a performance by the Three C Cowboys.  The food and entertainment were good.  Kelsey’s version of the chuck wagon dinner was some cornbread and a chocolate brownie.  The rest of us were able to enjoy some salad, baked potatoes, baked beans, applesauce, pulled beef, chicken thighs, cornbread and brownies for dessert with water or lemonade to drink.

After our dinner and performance we walked down the street to the Cody Rodeo, held nightly June through August.  We enjoyed watching the various events.  We figured we needed to do this since Cody, WY is the rodeo capital of the world.  During the intermission Lindsey participated in a contest for all children under 12.  They released two small cattle into the arena with bandanas tied to their tails.  All of the children were to chase after the cattle and grab the bandana.  The children who could catch the cattle and grab a bandana won a prize.  Unfortunately for Lindsey there were a large number of children, so she was not successful, but we cheered her on for her effort!