July 8 Saturday Yellowstone

Last night we played a few dummy hands of pinochle with the girls to remind them of how the game is played.  They caught on fairly quickly.

Today we took a ride down towards West Thumb.  We stopped to take a walk down to the water, but the path through the woods was quite challenging as we were swarmed by a squadron of mosquitoes.  I think we each donated a pint although Dave said he earned his two gallon pin.  We didn’t actually get to the water as the path ran out and the area we would have to cross over was very swampy.  When we got back to the truck, we found we had about 30 hitchhikers, which we smashed against the windows.  We then had to clean the windows of carcasses and blood smears.  I can’t imagine how it would have been if we hadn’t sprayed with repellent before our walk!  We drove further south and found another area, which turned out to be perfect as we were able to walk out on a long sand spit with water on both sides.  The girls dipped their feet and declared it cold!  The sand was interesting as it was composed mostly of obsidian.  We spent some time there enjoying the walk and the water and the girls spelled their names in the sand with pieces of driftwood.  We then drove down to West Thumb and stopped to walk the geyser boardwalk.  The girls especially liked the hot springs that spilled over into Yellowstone Lake.  We were guessing that the water is a bit warmer there.  We came upon a ranger giving a talk about the geysers and stopped to listen.  The girls loved the part where the ranger held up her right index finger and said, “Repeat after me: This is not a thermometer!”  She explained that we could judge the temperature of the water by its color.  The sky blue color is the hottest - about boiling temperature.  We then went into Grant Village and ate our pb&j sandwiches and checked out the general store.  The girls persuaded me to take their photo with a giant stuffed bear ranger.  We drove back and dropped Dave off at camp for a nap (the altitude here is getting to him a bit) and we continued on to Fishing Bridge to do laundry and get ice cream for the girls.  We came back to camp and the girls made balloon animals, which they gave away to the little kids camping behind us.  The girls made blueberry pancakes and bacon for dinner last night and then we played pinochle in the tent vestibule.  Ella and Dave won the first game and Zoe and I won the second.  We will have to have a play off tomorrow night and then switch partners.  At 9:30 we walked over to the amphitheater for the ranger talk on grizzly bears.  It seems hard to believe that before 1970, people used to hand feed the bears from their cars!  Now the bears are further away from the people and campers are much safer.