yellowstone day 2 ..

today was out last day in yellowstone so we thought

we would go for a swim in the boiling river ..

or i mean .. jeff and the kids went for a swim in the boiling river ..

a hot spring dumps about 3000 gallons of boiling water into the ice cold river every minute ..

they said there were super hot spots and super cold spots ..

it was also waterfall day ..

this is the waterfall from artists point in the grand canyon of yellowstone

thomas moran has made this view famous with his paintings of yellowstone ..

this was one of the views that moran used to persuade congress to make yellowstone a national park ..

breathtaking doesn't even come close to describing the park .. 

the other side of the falls from artists point ..

the mineral stains on the rock give the canyon it beautiful colors .. 

this was our last stop of the day ..

cash does not want to hear me say 

"oh my goodness .. look at that" one more time 

yellowstone is a huge huge huge park .. 

it covers 2,221,766 acres 

3% in montana, 96% in wyoming and 1% in idaho

1% has been developed for tourism ..

that leaves 99% totally undeveloped and natural

just to give you an idea of how big it is ..

it takes an hour to an hour and half to get from the gates at west yellowstone to the 

first ranger information station at madison .. and it's just 14 miles !

yellowstone reintroduced wolves in 1995 and 1996

they are now thriving ..

there are 12 -15 packs of wolves with 7-19 wolves in each pack 

we didn't get to see any wolves or any bears

but we did see elk, pronghorn deer and bison 

tomorrow we are going to float the snake river and go onto jackson hole and the tetons ..