Day 7 was heaven

Today was a great day and not just relative to yesterday but also in it's own right.

As we had seen so much of the park already we didn't have as much on our to do list today, especially as the weather forecast had called for thunderstorms.

See how happy I am to be back!: it's amazing what a good night of sleep can do.

The kids were also in great moods and even wanted to stop at Gibbon falls:

Look no tears!:

Our drive into the park was loaded with amazing bison sittings including a large herd:

We even stopped by the Yellowstone Grand Canyon to see the view we had skipped in our hasty retreat yesterday, which happened to be this one:

Can you believe we almost missed that?

We went on to our first official stop of the day, sulphur caldron and mud volcano. These are some of the most active areas of the park that sit right in the caldera of the volcano:

We had lunch at West Thumb on Yellowstone Lake, where the kids were genuinely delighted to be picnicking again:

After lunch we revisited Old Faithful as Julianne had not seen it yet. We took a quick photo at the Continental Divide on the way.  Heidi wanted to take a group shot and I'll say she did a pretty good job:

Look still no tears and it's the end of the day:

As we had seen no wolves or grizzlies, we stopped by a sanctuary near our hotel:

This was Andrew introducing his stuffed wolf to it's wild brethren, which I am sure they appreciated.

At this point it did start pouring with rain and so we made it back to the hotel for a swim. 

Tomorrow I might actually let us have the morning off before we pick up Mike and make our way to Sheridan, Wyoming. Unless the weather is nice ...