Yellowstone National Park

Ahhhh Yellowstone!

No place sums up how amazing and precarious life is on our ever-changing planet better than this place.

Here, spectacular waterfalls, amazing scenery and abundant wildlife combine with the most intense collection of thermal features on Earth.

In the moments that you pause and think about the giant (and I mean GIANT) caldera you're inside of, or the earthquakes that hit here more than anywhere else in the lower 48, or the mammoth bulges of magma that give the area its elevation, it really does scare the utter doody out of you.

But every tourist is walking around smiling and pretending they haven't thought about the fact that when this thing blows its top again one day it will be nighty-nite planet-wide.

But for now at least Yellowstone is gorgeous and if you can get past the fact that you almost have to have a crack-of-dawn fist fight to secure a camp site (if you're not the plan-ahead type) there is a LOT to see.

We took the boys to the Old Faithful area and the Grand Prismatic set, along with the Norris Geyser Basin for a bit of thermal action.

We walked a bit of the south rim trail to watch water descend over the Yellowstone Falls and to admire the colours from Artists Point.

We mainly concentrated on the northern area which we hadn't seen previously, including the travertines at Mammoth Hot Springs, and after three nights camping (at Madison, Norris and Indian Camp) we took the North Eastern exit out of the park.

The bison herds were impressive and boasted lots of spring-born calves and the Lamar Valley was where they were mostly concentrated.

The kids' two favourite things from the park were:

1) using the two tubes we now have to float across mini water falls and along a meandering section of Firehole Creek (well above Firehole Falls), and the next day again at the stream near our campsite at Norris.

2) watching a goose battling against all odds to take off from amidst the water racing towards the precipice of the massive yellowstone falls and 'surfing' the rapids to the cliff's edge where it found momentary refuge.

The kids loved watching the 'cool surfing goose' so much that they even drew pictures about it back at our campsite that night.

(Just don't mention the fact the goose had no way to get up the cliff to safety and the only way out for the poor thing was going to be down over those falls).