Watkins Reunion at Yellowstone - Part One

This past week, we had a family reunion up at Island Park, ID. If you aren't familiar with that town, it's about 15 miles west of Yellowstone National Park...and only 45 mins away from Rexburg. If we had a reunion anywhere else, it would have been hard for us to make it since we are expecting the baby anytime now. It was great to have the whole family together and show them the area.

We spent our first day at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. We got to watch the grizzlies be fed, and see some wolves sleep in their cage. We learned quite a bit about both animals.

This was giant teddy bear inside the gift shop there that I really couldn't resist taking a picture with. Kylie, Lexi and Sadie are in the picture with us.

Dad and Ty on the dock at Henry's Lake.

The next day we went to Yellowstone. As we drove into the park, we saw a bunch of cars pulling off to the side, and people getting out of their cars to see something. So we looked to our right and saw some bison right next to the road! They must have been 20 yards away. This was the male, and he was HUGE!

Here is the family watching the bison. There was a female, and a couple of calves with the male.

My niece Kylie and I with the bison in the background.

The next stop were a few geysers, en route to Old Faithful. These were mostly some hot pots we were looking at here. The sulfur made it smell like really bad gas (the human kind).

Here is my very photogenic niece Sadie. I had fun putting my hat on my nieces and nephews. They started to tell each other that if you wore that hat, your hair would fall out!

Ty and Tiff's family.

You can see the steam coming from this pool. The waters were a very crystal blue color.

Here is a good belly shot near Old Faithful. There are some wooden plank walk-ways around the whole geyser, with smaller geysers and hot pots all around.

Here is another hat shot of my nephew Sam. I was surprised I got this shot because he rarely makes eye contact with the camera!

And of course...Old Faithful! It shoots off about every 90 minutes (give or take 10 minutes). We ended up waiting an extra ten minutes for it. There were a lot of teasers where it would spout out a little, then stop...spout a little more, then stop. FINALLY, after 10 minutes of teasing us it shot off.