Yellowstone - 6/27 to 7/1

We had so much fun on our trip to Yellowstone! It was nice to get away for a while and just be together. We got to see a lot of beautiful sights. Yellowstone National Park is a gorgeous place.We drove up on Saturday morning and arrived around 3pm. The first thing we checked out was the Grizzly Discovery Center. They have a bunch of bears and wolves to see. They are all in captivity because they became a nuisance in the wild. These animals kept getting into trouble and finally had to be removed from the wild and kept in captivity. The center has tried to keep their natural ways in tact as much as possible.The staff would hide food under rocks and bushes so the bears could dig and search for it themselves. It was so neat to see bears acting how they did. They are fascinating to watch.They also have wolves. They weren't too exciting to watch. They all just laid around and slept. This was the only one that was awake.Howie checking out the bears!We stopped on the way to Old Faithful to check out some of the Hot Springs and Paint Pots.Here's a Hot Spring. They reak of rotten eggs. That's due to the hydrogen sulfite.Paint Pots.Here is Old Faithful! It's eruption only lasted a couple minutes but it was spectacular to see! It got bigger than I had remembered.The rangers told us that the animals were migrating north this time of year in search for food so it didn't surprise us too much that we saw the most wildlife when we took a drive around the northern loop of the park. We saw so many animals! I became a dumb tourist and actually got out of our car to take pictures of these Elk. You're told not to get out of your car, but it was so neat I couldn't resist.Here is a massive herd of Bison. For the most part we saw one or two buffalos here and there, rarely seeing them in a herd. But then one day, BAM, here they all were. In a massive herd. I couldn't believe how close people were getting to them.We were told that a lady had been gored by a buffalo just a week before we came. We didn't want to risk it, so we stayed in our little car. One of my favorite parts to visit in the park was The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Gorgeous views from every overlook! Here's me by one of the waterfalls.We did an easy hike to Artist's Point. It was only about 2 miles. Here's Howie being silly.This is a picture from Artist's Point. Worth the hike! The canyon is amazing!Here is magnificent Tower Falls!Here is the sad, and very very dry, Mammoth Hot Springs. There was nothing exciting about it at ALL. We didn't think it was worth the drive up there. I don't know if it's always this dry, but it was very disappointing.Howie and I did a 5 mile hike to Fairy Falls. It was totally worth it! This waterfall was our favorite to see! It was beautiful.We went home a different way than how we got there. We decided to drive down through Jackson Hole and take a peek at The Grand Tetons. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. The pictures don't do them justice. They were so pretty. You'd think I'd never seen a mountain range before.This trip was really good for us. We really enjoyed it. We celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary on Sunday June 28th. We were going to take our wedding cake up with us, but I decided we'd just try it when we got back. We had some yesterday and it was delicious! I'm glad too because we had our doubts. I can't believe it's already been a year. It's been a year full of ups and downs. Some people say that "the first year is the hardest". If that's true then I think we'll be just fine. Our first year was really not that bad. The hardest part for us has been getting two independent people to start relying on each other. We both had our own lives before and now we're just trying to get them to mesh. We're working on it and in the meantime getting to know one another better. It's been a fun ride so far and I can't wait to see what's in store for us in the future.