Day 5, in Yellowstone

Sunday, 10:30pm

After a picnic lunch, we packed up the stroller and headed for the Old Faithful viewing area. Jeff and I sat on a bench in the front row, while the kids ran around and played. We ended up sitting in the sun for about 45 minutes, and wow was it hot! Lily was the only lucky one, with a shade on her stroller. Levi ran around making laser-gun noises (ptshew! ptshew!) and telling random passers-by, “It’s gonna shoot STEEEEEEM!” Jaden walked around the gravel for quite a while following, and trying to catch, a large grasshopper. Lily and Kendra ended up sitting in the gravel and playing like it was a sandbox, and Aspen and I sat on the bench and played numbers games. She likes to count to 100, just because she can, and she thinks it’s funny to stop at random points so that I can say the next number. I rarely say the right one, she tells me “No, mama, you have to say this one,” and the next time she stops, I say whatever number she told me to say last time. Yes, we’re easily amused, but hey, she’s four and whatever keeps her occupied is a good thing.

The eruption itself was impressive. I videoed it with my camera, but it still doesn’t capture what it’s really like, because you can’t see the scale and it’s hard to tell that it’s shooting steam and water over 100 feet in the air. I was surprised at how long the eruption lasted; I guess I thought it was a twenty- or thirty-second blast, but apparently it can be anywhere from 90 seconds to five minutes. This time, it was over 3 minutes. It was just as much fun for me to watch the kids watching the geyser: Lily sat and just stared, Levi clapped and said “Wow!” too many times to count, and the older kids all had their mouths open.

What really made it memorable, though, was the man who came and sat on the ground in front of us. Just before the eruption began, he pulled out a Native American flute and began to play. The haunting, lonesome melody echoed as hundreds of people sat silently in awe of the plumes of steam and water shooting skyward. Rather than detract from the geyser, the music complemented it perfectly.

After ice cream sandwiches and a Junior Ranger hat for Lily at the General Store, we drove to our campsite. We’re on the outside of Loop C in Grant Village, which puts us a 2-minute walk from the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake. Now, I’m an outdoorsy person, I love to camp, and I don’t mind the insects and being outside, but the amount of dirt here is just crazy! The campsites are dirt, and at the end of the evening the kids had black feet and a crust of grime everywhere on their bodies. You can’t use soap at the campsite because it might attract bears, and the only showers are a five-minute drive, so we ended up heating up some water and washing the kids off with washcloths. Even after a washcloth, hot water, and several rinses and scrubbing, Jaden and Andrew are still brown-footed, although it’s a little bit better. We carried them to the tent so they couldn’t pick up more dirt, and everyone slept like logs.

Product rave for the day: Blue Lizard sunscreen. A message board I’m a member of, Dallas Area Moms, had a discussion a while back about sunscreen and the dangers of oxybenzone (which is in nearly every sunscreen on the market). Quite honestly, I thought it sounded alarmist and kind of like “The sky is falling!” at first, but after doing some research on oxybenzone, I decided that it’s something my kids don’t really need to be exposed to. Blue Lizard uses zinc oxide and titanium dioxide instead of chemicals, and is manufactured in Australia. Where US waterproof testing requires the sunscreen to still be present at 80min in standing water, Aussie testing (so I’m told) is 240min in a whirlpool. I’ve been putting it on all of us in the morning, and even up here at 8000+ feet the only slight sunburn we’ve gotten so far is when I forget to reapply it at dinner time, or on the kids’ scalps when they don’t wear a hat. If you know of other non-chemical sunscreens or places to buy them, please leave a comment or send me an email!

Total distance since our last mileage check: 492 miles.