Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2020 June 21

We’re road-tripping it up still. We drove to Yellowstone from John’s parents yesterday and spent all day in the park today. Because we had Wally with us, and dogs aren’t allowed in any trails, we took during doing a lot of things, and got to do some things twice. We first did the Firehole Canyon drive, where we took a family picture, just like we did on our last visit - when Maggie was 2, and I was pregnant with Dalton. Ben we went to the paint pots. I took all the kids through the loop in the rain, and then went again with John, by which point the rain had moved on.

We went to the Grand Prismatic Spring area, where we left the girls behind on the first trip, then John took them for round two. Then John and the older kids hiked to the overlook, which looked amazing, but I decided to skip it. We then had lunch in the Old Faithful parking lot, and got to watch it erupt as a family, including Wally. I watched Wally while everyone else did a loop walk to see lots of other geysers (their favorite was Anemone geyser).

After Old Faithful, we drove to West Thumb. John and I left the kids to do a hike, but it took us three tries to find the trail we wanted, which was actually the boardwalk to lot of geysers and mud pots, some of which were IN the lake. We got sprinkled on a bit as we watched a huge storm pass over the other side of the lake. The boardwalk was so cool we decided I would take the kids through it. I retook a pic John and I did, in the same area, only with sun in the background. Ten minutes later, we were hurrying through pouring rain and hail, and super close lightning and thunder from another storm that blew in. Yikes. We drove in the rain back the way we came, and by the time we got to the Continental Divide sign we wanted to take a pic of, the sun was back.

On the way home we stopped at Biscuit Basin, where John and I walked around with the boys - lots of colorful pools, and did the other Firehole Lake drive. And saw some bison.