-Huckleberries are delicious. In ice cream, jam, syrup, lemonade, chocolate, soda, pretty much anything. We came home with four jars of jam, two of syrup, huckleberry licorice and some huckleberry lemonade mix. (Nutrition)
-Yellowstone is a particularly unique national park that draws travelers from all over. We spotted license plates from all the states except Rhode Island, Mississippi, Delaware. We also spotted visitors from Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, British Columbia and Saskatchewan provinces in Canada. (Geography)
-We also saw a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of Asian tourists, many of them quite rude, which is a cultural thing. They don’t think they are doing anything particularly offensive. (Cultural Anthropology)
-We crossed the continental divide in three different places which provided us with an opportunity to teach our younguns what that is all about. The crossing with the highest altitude was at 8300 ft. (Physical Geography)
-Our time in Yellowstone and the information we found in the various visitors’ centers provided us the opportunity to learn about what creates some of the different geothermal elements we saw there including fumaroles, geysers, hot springs, and my personal favorite, mud pots. (Geothermal Science)
-Yellowstone is, in fact, a huge super volcano which is why it is home to so many geothermal elements. (Volcanology)
-Bison can jump 6 feet straight up. They can weigh 2000 pounds or more and are 6 feet tall. Their heads alone weigh 200 pounds and they use that weight to push aside the snow in the winter so they can eat the plant growth beneath it. The humps they have on their backs are huge muscles that support the weight of their heads while they graze. They have dewclaws which they use the grip the ground in snowy weather as well as weapons when attacked. (Zoology)
-Breathing becomes increasingly difficult at high altitudes as the oxygen and air pressure levels decrease. (Physiology)
-Fire is an important part of the wellness of an ecosystem. Some pinecones only release their seeds when the heat of a fire causes them to open. This self-seeding is dependent on the heat of the fire. Fires that are too cool won’t trigger the self-seeding and it the fire is too hot the pinecones can’t withstand the heat. (Botany)
-Lodgepole pines, the most common trees in Yellowstone, are self-pruning. The lower branches die and eventually drop off the trunk. (Botony)
-A long, wet spring meant the early June weather was perfect, cool and sunny. There was only one afternoon when it was warm enough that I was starting to feel the ill effects of the heat. It rained around 2 pm on several days, but not our full days in the park. When they did occur, the thunderstorms were spectacular, and we enjoyed the show. I did snow, but not until last night. As we had reached the end of our vacation, it gave us no worries. (Meteorology)
I’ve asked each of the kids to tell me which part of our vacation was their favorite. This is what they decided:
-Daniel’s favorite bit was seeing the “Grand Canyon” of Yellowstone and Yellowstone Falls.
-Nathan says horseback riding was pretty awesome. He enjoyed the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and his overall opinion of Yellowstone was that “it was all pretty epic.”
-Matthew loved all three of our days in Yellowstone. He couldn’t narrow it down further than that. He thought it was all amazing.
-And it will come as no surprise that Malia’s favorite part was horseback riding.
As for me, I really enjoyed all our time in the park (minus the sunburn and the mosquitos) but my favorite part was probably Fountain Paint Pot. The bubbling mud pots made an incredibly satisfying splurching sound. Nathan’s word for the sound was “Glop-Splosh-oling.” And, of course, being able to spend that time together as a family was wonderful. Our regular schedules frequently get so crazy that we are all coming and going, occasionally crossing paths as we rush to get where we need to be. As a result, having an entire week to be together at an easy pace with no demands from the clock was amazing.
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