Yellowstone

Visiting Old Faithful

Land of Hot Springs, Geysers, and the Wildlife.

We stayed in the Old Faithful Inn.  Some rooms are pretty rustic, but ours was great.  Some of the rooms even have a shared bathroom.  Shared with the rest of the Hotel.
Being a big fan of Hot Springs, Yellowstone is one of the top places in the world for hot springs.  However, they're pretty much all reserved for the animals.  the geothermal activity, being mildly dangerous, and not impervious to human destruction has enabled Yellowstone Park to evolve a decent boardwalk system for viewing the pools and geysers.  This was a nice feature for going on walks with our daughter.  However, she caught a cold and was having a hard time sleeping, so we cut short our vacation.

We saw grizzly bears, baby buffalo, elk, wolves, coyotes, and lots of squirrels and chipmunks.

• more of our vacation photos

Helpful Websites with information about Geyser activity:

• A website that keeps track of Geyser eruptions, and when they are approximately going to erupt:
• http://geysertimes.org/
• The National Park Service's website about Geyser Activity:
• http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/geyseractivity.htm
• Webcams of Yellowstone.
• http://www.nps.gov/yell/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm

Craters of the Moon

One of the stops on our family vacation was the Craters of the Moon National Monument.  The Craters of the Moon is a lava flow out in the middle of Idaho.  It's basically a pretty un-hospitable space, unless you like sharp pieces of igneous rock.  But is it neat to see the different geologic formations.  The volcanic rock remnants gets very hot, and even on a cool May day, it was just about right at the Craters of the Moon.

Milford Sweat

We recently went on vacation, and we stopped at the Milford Sweat hot springs near the Craters of the Moon National Monument.  The hot springs was a little cool, but probably just about right for the weather in the coming weeks.

Kindle and booosks

Melissa got me a Kindle Paperwhite for a birthday Present.  I've been having bunches of fun with it.  One book I read on it was the latest Terry Brooks novel, Bloodfire Quest.  Brooks has a great fantasy universe he has constructed over the last 35 years.  However, I feel like his writing is in a small part drifting toward the Paranormal Teen Romance trend.  I've also been reading John Piper's Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, for LibraryThing Early Reviewers (among other books from the Early Reviewers programs).

Spa-sitively Excellent

We recently found a spa to adopt from Craigslist.  It was only a few years old, and in need of a good home.  It's a Bullfrog 462.  When getting a spa for an addition to the family, it's a good idea to get the electrical setup by a professional, or at least inspected.  So we had the electrical inspector come and find the insufficiencies in our work.  We got them fixed and have been enjoying it since!  We're trying out using a Silver Catalyst cleaner Nature 2 W20750 and Potassium Monopersulfate (MPS) Leisure Time LES-RENU6 instead of Chlorine or Bromine .