Yellowstone Day 2. . .

 On Tuesday, July 30th, we drove back into the park and headed to the Lower Yellowstone Falls. Such a great view of more natural beauty!

We didn't purposely try to coordinate our clothing.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

When Adri was running around, several strangers became very nervous. I'm used to her personality and I know her limits, but others don't. I knew she wasn't going to climb over the ledge and fall down the slope, but I could tell some people thought I was crazy for letting her run so close to the edge!

Emma was content to hang out with Aunt Bethany. I honestly felt like I was having a real vacation because my in-laws were such a great help with the girls! They aren't difficult girls normally, but having extra hands sure was nice!

After lunch at a park overlooking Upper Falls, we drove around to a place where we could hike down for a better view of the falls. It wasn't a very strenuous hike, although I was carrying Adri and had to be careful. I loved hiking with the Schrag family. Almost everyone made it down to the bottom!

Tim and Bethany

Marcy and Robert

Jon and Ben didn't make the hike down, but here's the rest of the crew. Krista, Jon's girlfriend, came with us to Yellowstone. It was fun getting to know her and spend time with her. Steve and Maggie are next to me (with two of their three boys, Jakob and Noah), and then Tim and Bethany are behind Krista (in red). Marcy and Robert are on the right.

Hiking back up wasn't near as easy as it was going down! Bethany helped encourage Emma and we all finally made it!

Adri held on for as long as she could and then she just couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. I loved holding her close to me and I took my time hiking up just so I could savor the moment!

After visiting the falls, we loaded up and drove north toward the Lamar Valley. We all wanted to see bison and we were definitely not disappointed!!

Below is a family that happened to be close to where we stopped for some pictures. I ran across the road with two of my nephews and Emma before I realized the bison were actually running toward us. My heart froze for a split second and then they took off running east, away from us.

After the bison ran away, we headed back toward the van and stumbled upon this bone. We're not sure if it was a bison bone, but Emma was convinced it was and was so proud of her find!

Further down the road, we saw the family again. This time, they were stopping traffic!

Fierce.

This one was feisty!

As we were heading west through Lamar Valley, we came upon a bison very close to the road. He was pawing the dirt and looked like he was about to charge! I stuck my head out the sunroof and told Kevin to drive slowly past him. My husband, being a very smart man, did not listen to me and sped past the angry animal. Just as I turned around, I saw the massive beast charge across the road, only a few feet in front of the car behind us. . . which just happened to be the other half of the Schrag family!! Jon was driving and Maggie captured the moment for us all!! I'm so glad Kevin didn't drive by slowly! That guy could have rolled our van with the force of his momentum!! 

We saw an insane number of bison in Lamar Valley! As Emma said, there were "thousands"!! We turned around before we had driven through all of the valley, and I took the driver's seat for the almost-two hour drive home. We were all exhausted and happy to get back to the cabin!!