Yellowstone Trip Day 1 and 2

When we landed in Bozeman, Montana, we spent the afternoon exploring some of the parks in the city. We visited a park with a lake and playground as well as the Gallagator hiking trail and Sourdough hiking trail. Most playgrounds in Bozeman have a rock climbing wall. The girls were determined to scale all walls that they could find. While on the Gallagator trail, we encountered a sculpture garden as well as the local library. It was hot hiking with limited shade on this trail, but we got to see the entire city from up high. On the Sourdough trail, we walked in the shade next to a creek. The girls were worried about bears but we only encountered dogs with their owners.

Our first day in Yellowstone started off with a trip to the Prismatic Overlook as well as Fairy Falls. We hiked on both boardwalks and gravel trails to get to our destinations. After Fairy falls, we stopped at Old Faithful and saw some more hot spring activity. We rounded the day off with a cooler hike in the shade next to a stream. Unfortunately, we decided to take the same trail that an "itchy" bison wanted to take. We were stuck on the trail for a bit as he decided to ram his head into trees along the path. We were thankful we were almost done with the trail by the time we encountered him. One man that was traveling ahead of us tried to go around him, but found out the hard way that he couldn't when the bison started to turn in his direction. Both girls demanded that Dan and I get further back because the materials they read said we needed to be 25 yards from the bison. Apparently we were too close for the girls to feel completely safe, and the bison was quite upset that he couldn't get rid of his itch.

Dan on the trail right before we encountered the bison