Yellowstone: Artists’ Paint Pots

The gates to Yellowstone are open 24 hours a day.  We needed to have an early start in order to see everything I had planned for our first day in the park.

The One Horse Motel had some interesting offerings for breakfast: oatmeal, coffee, packaged mini pastries, Costco chocolate chip granola bars, dum dums, etc.  I also picked up our boxed lunches from nearby Ernie’s Bakery & Deli.  I actually ordered and paid for the lunches online the week before, and they were ready and waiting for us!  I was quite impressed.

We also made a quick stop at Woodside Bakery because I had read rave reviews.

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As I recall, we tried the cream cheese croissant, raspberry scone, and huckleberry muffin.  They were all quite light, which I am sure was due to the abundance of butter used.

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The kids waited with D in the car while I purchased the pastries.  When I returned to the car, n asked, “Did you go to Big Gun Fun?”, which was right next door to the bakery.  Haha!

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The drive into Yellowstone from the west side was amazing.  The river was right next to parts of the highway.

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There were steam vents, or fumaroles, which made for some mystical scenery.

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Our first stop inside the park was the Artists’ Paintpots Trail.

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It was pretty chilly in the morning.  As soon as I took this picture, the small geyser behind them started gurgling a lot.  The kids joked that it must have been angry that I was trying to take a picture of it!

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It was surreal to see steam rising everywhere.

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Here are the paintpots (notice the different colors).

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On our way to our next stop, we also spotted our first bison!  We joined a small group of people pulled over to the side of the road to get a closer look!

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