Day 28: Shoshone National Forest to Yellowstone National Park, WY via Cody

With a sweet start to the day - pancakes with homemade maple syrup that we brought from home - we packed up and headed on to our next adventure.

We picked up groceries and gas in Cody before heading through the mountain tunnel and stopping for lunch in Buffalo Bill State Park.

We drove through a different part of Shoshone National Forest, this time the landscape was dominated by rock spires resembling Mordor. We kept our eyes peeled for Frodo and Sam.

Finally, after much anticipation, we arrived in Yellowstone. Quote of the day - Liam: “I am SO excited to be here!” That warmed our hearts; it is a beautiful thing to see the kids thrilled by a natural wonder.

It is cold here - about eight degrees Celsius during the day. It is supposed to snow 5-10cm tonight! There is snow on many of the peaks in the park and avalanche risks on roads going through some high elevation areas. Also lots of burned down parts of the forest, in early stages of regeneration.

Our afternoon adventure was to visit steamboat point, the mud volcano, the dragon’s mouth, and sulphur cauldron. It was SMELLY! The epic sulphuric odour caught all the boys by surprise.

We stopped to see the Yellowstone Grand Canyon and Lower Falls. It is enormous and very impressive. We hope to have the chance to do a rim hike later in our visit.

During the whole three hours we haven been in Yellowstone, we have seen a yellow-bellied marmot, bison, elk, two grizzly bears, a heron, ravens, and a black bear.

We have also seen many humans; most with gigantic telephoto lenses. They are their own special breed, for sure.