So we're gonna get a winter after all.

After living in San Diego for so long, we kind of forgot that there is weather other than 72 and sunny. Not really, we did get a bit of rain, but for the most part the "winter" that we got was more of a Virginia springtime. Well we have made up for it now. The weather over the past couple of days in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming has been cold and snowy. Really snowy.

We left Salt Lake City this morning and drove north into Idaho, which looked a lot like Utah only without the salt flats. More north through Idaho Falls and into Montana where we are staying tonight in a town called West Yellowstone. A very cute western town with wooden plank sidewalks and saloons...I wouldn't be surprised to see a hitching post somewhere. Once we checked into our motel, we headed in to Yellowstone to see what we could see. And wow. We drove east into the park then north to the top near Montana again. (The park is in Wyoming) As soon as we got into Yellowstone we started seeing the cool stuff. Bison walking right along the road was the best part. They were all over the place, and didn't care how close they got to cars, but at the same time didn't seem to notice them. We saw some elk too, and a really great nest with a gorgeous bald eagle in it. Stopped at a place called Artist Paint Pot, not really knowing what to expect. Had to walk on a trail for about 1/3 a mile back to the hot springs. What we saw was a group of over 50 springs, geysers, vents and mud pots. The "pots" were so colorful, varying in shades of blue, grey and brown. It was such a neat sight to see. Little holes in the ground with teal blue water bubbling and some even bubbling to the point of shooting up a bit. Steam everywhere since it was 30 degrees outside. Matthew and Matt even got a chance on the trail to have a little snowball fight.

We stopped to see Roaring Mountain, which is just a mountain who's whole face is white and steamy and bubbling. It's covered in fumaroles (steam vents) because it's a large, acidic hydrothermal area.

We continued north to Mammoth Hot Springs, which was just more steamy, sulfur smelling holes. They all kind of have their own characteristics so it never really gets old.

Waterfalls all over the place too, which is my personal favorite.

Tomorrow is most certainly going to be packed with more cool animal sightings, and surprising geological wonders. I love this place! I wish we could spend a week and camp and hike...something else on our steady growing list of places to return to. Hopefully the skies clear up though so we can see better.