Ali and John's visit

Ali and her husband John went on vacation to yellowstone for a few days, and since we live so close we met them and gave them a bit of a tour. For those wondering, Ali used to work with Randal in Holton.
We met them in Cooke City and had lunch at a tiny cafe. It was a charming little place. Randal and I both got a special called the "cheddar bomb burger".. very tasty I might add! Ali and John both said their sandwhiches were good too, a club and prime rib sandwhich. I have no idea what the name of the place is, I'll try to catch the name of it some time.
When my food arrived, the waitress asked if Sierra would come to her so I could eat my lunch. WOW. Of course Sierra was more than willing.. I swear she will go to just about anyone. I'm still adjusting to waitresses takin my kid, but as long as they don't get out of my sight, I am fairly okay with it. I was able to eat my entire burger while Sierra played restaurant princess. It's a little family owned place so she got to meet the whole family...and played shy to the rest of the family lol. She patted the waitresses shoulder while she was being carried around. The other patrons absolutely loved her and asked if she would stay to keep them company lol.
The other cool thing about the restaurant is, they sold wolf charts.. it has pics of all the collared wolves and gives their names and collar numbers. It also tells you all about all the different packs, how many are in there, their colors, approx age, and where they were last known to roam (as of May 9th). 5 bucks well spent when you are a wolf addict like myself! She only had 2 left, so I got lucky!
Then it was off to the park. We gave Ali and John a walkie talkie and we had the other one, so we were able to tell them random stuff, and see what they were interested in doing. We saw a moose early on, but unfortunately weren't able to stop.. in yellowstone you have to pull off the road so that all 4 tires are over the white line.. and there wasn't room for both cars to do so.. since we didn't want to start the day out with a ticket, we carried on. The next big jame was for a single large bull elk. ...not sure why he got such a jam.. we didn't end up stopping for him for the same reason. The next jame was a single big horn ram. there also wasn't room to stop for him either. We pulled off in a pull out next to Baronette Peak.. and talked to a family with a scope and saw a mountain goat.. very cool.. first one of the year. WAY too far away for any of our cameras.. but it was nice to see one anyway.
We went to the grand canyon of the park, and saw both the upper and lower falls, we were going to take them to Uncle Toms trail.. not that I was gonna walk it.. but they were gonna check it out at least..but it was closed due to damaged stairs. ...for those not familiar with uncle tom's trail.. its over 300 steep steps that are basically grates, so you see alllllllllll the way down to the canyon bottom. ...not very nice for anyone scared of heights...or out of shape...or both~!
We also went to Tower falls. The lower view point was washed out, so you couldn't take that trail either.
There was a huuuuuge line for the bathroom at the last waterfall stop, so we went to Canyon..which is a built up area with gift shops, visitor center, lodge, deli, cafeteria, etc.. it took Ali, John and I 3 places before we found an open one.. sheesh! 3rd times a charm I guess lol. Randal said the new visitor center is really nice and has a really cool display about volcanoes and where their ash landed... he said the ash from the last yellowstone erruption about 600 yrs ago buried Kansas in ash.. wow...
We then went to Norris geyser basin. Its not as active as it once was, but its still a nice walk. Steamboat is fun when its in minor erruption mode.. which it was.. it was spitting water up anywhere from 20-50 feet high at times. When it really errupts it goes over 300 feet and can be seen and heard for miles. I'd love to see it go some day.. but that hasn't happened since...may 2005. We were kinda surprised about how some of the pools were empty when just a couple weeks ago they were full. ...perhaps something is happening in the basin. Thats what makes the basin's fun.. they are constantly changing and energy is changing from place to place. Randal said every fall for about a week the basin just goes crazy and all sorts of weird stuff can happen. Looking forward to that!
After that we took them to Mammoth where we got pics and parted ways. On our way home, we could have stopped for a ton of wolf jams and possibly bear jams.. but we knew we were getting home late enough. I got a really good pic of a baby bison, which was really close to the road.. I missed a couple great opportunities.. but my batteries werent fresh enough to be quick enough.
...have I mentioned I love the park??