Copying at it's best: Crane reunion Part 1

This post was copied word for word; picture for picture, from my amazing sister.

Last Tuesday, my Dad, and [my family] flew into town for a week of Crane festivities, including a trip to Yellowstone and the annual Crane Reunion in Idaho.
(Brian was job hunting in California most of the week)

Johnny and Jack (my nephew) playing with Elizabeth's ipad before bedtime.

Fun with Papa in the hotel before and after Yellowstone.

Wednesday we left our hotel in Idaho Falls at 5 am and headed for Yellowstone.

The last time I was in Yellowstone, I was nine years old, and it was just as incredible as I remembered.

Firehole River

Madison River

Fountain Paint Pot Nature Trail.
The Spasm Geyser name made me laugh, it goes against everything Old Faithful is all about.

Excelsior Geyser, which has a crater 200 x 300 ft with a constant emptying of more than 4,000 gallons of water per minute into the Firehole River.

The variations of blue throughout Yellowstone were unreal.

Midway Geyser Basin (Firehole River bottom left)

Because my child's scream could be heard from 150 feet away (geyser fears), I chose to take a picture slideshow of Old Faithful instead of video.... which can be printed out, cut out and formed into an excellent flip book.

Interesting factoid: Yellowstone contains approximately one-half of the world’s hydrothermal features. There are over 10,000 hydrothermal features, including over 300 geysers, in the park.

The Great Continental Divide, which means all rain that falls to the east of this line flows into the Atlantic ocean and rain that falls to the west of this line flows into the Pacific Ocean. Isn't the Earth incredible and so efficient??

Nonstop breathtaking scenery.

Yellowstone Lake (below), the largest natural freshwater lake in the country that is above 7,000 feet. Yellowstone Lake is 20 miles long by 14 miles wide and the entire lake completely freezes over during the winter!

More of Yellowstone Lake

Bison, bison and more bison.

I feel like this picture might have been planned... look closely.

I think people forgot that bison are wild, unpredictable animals that weigh between 700-2,000 lbs and can reach running speeds as fast as 35-40 mph; not to mention that the number of bison attacks are triple that of bear attacks over the past 30 years in the U.S.

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone/Artist's Point

No picture could do this canyon justice and there is no question that something this incredible could be created by anything other than a greater power, there are no accidents.

My sister and I had both been on the look out the entire day for a bear, it was our one goal. I knew we would see a bear, Elizabeth was a little less optimistic. My dad has been to Yellowstone 5 times and said he had seen a bear each time, I thought these odds were in our favor. And finally after 9 hours of searching, we found ourselves in a line of stopped cars, abandoned by their drivers; everyone had was gathering along the road to see a bear that was most likely a mile away. It was exciting not only to see the bear making it's way slowly across the side of the mountain, but also that all these people were so engaged in the simplicity of nature. The media makes it seem like our National Parks are ghost towns, but they are wrong, Yellowstone was filled with people from all over the world, enjoying one of America's treasures.

Mammoth Hot Springs

And that was our day at Yellowstone; 10 hours in the actual park and worth every minute of it!

Kudos to anyone who actually read through all of this post.