Y is for Yellowstone

English: The north gate of the Yellowstone National Park (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the boys were much younger , we thought they would get a kick out of a trip to Yellowstone. I had never been to Yellowstone. But, Richard had when he was a young boy; in the 1940's. He had great memories.  And he wanted his boys to have those memories as well. Well things were much different in the 1980's. We had the beginnings of video games. And VCR's were coming out so you could watch movies over and over and over again. But we planned a trip to Yellowstone.

Yellowstone National Park (Photo credit: chuq_ui)

Old Faithful Geyser erupts approximately every 91 minutes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yellowstone National Park is mostly in the state of Wyoming. But some of it does extend into Idaho and Montana. This is the first National Park in America and was established in 1872. It is even believed to be the first national park in the whole world. Yellowstone is huge; about 3500 square miles of lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. The Continental Divide runs diagonally through the park. In my opinion what makes Yellowstone so awesome are the volcanoes that continue to erupt in the park on a regular basis. THe most famous of all of these geysers is Old Faithful. It was so amazing to stand and wait, and wait, and then watch as the geyser erupted into the air. Old Faithful erupts approximately once every 91 minutes.

The park is filled with plants and wildlife. They say there is approximately 60 different species of mammals living in the park. There are bears, bison, deer, elk, goats, sheep, lions, lynx just to name a few. We saw bear and bison and lots of deer, elk, and moose. Made for some pretty interesting drives through the park.

We stayed in a cabin in the park while we were there. If you ask my boys (even to this day) what they remember most about our trip to Yellowstone, it will be check-in day at the lodge. When we arrived at the Lodge, my husband parked the car and got out. It had been a long drive and both boys got out immediately also. But they were already running around excitedly waiting for Richard to catch up. But Richard had stopped and bent to the ground to pick something up. They were not at all interested in what he had found. They just wanted him to hurry. What had he found, you ask? A $50.00 bill lying right there on the ground next to the car. Of course he wanted to do the right thing and make this into a lesson for our kids. So when he got to the lodge he told the person checking him in that he had just found it on the ground and had anyone  had reported they had lost a fifty-dollar bill. The guy looked at my husband like he was crazy, but he agreed to hold on to it until the next day and if no one claimed it then it would be ours. Well no one claimed it! But do my boys remember the geyser, the bison, the bears, or the mountains. Nope. They remember finding that $50. And they spent the rest of the vacation looking on the ground every time we stopped the car.