Water Water Everywhere

We sadly left Bozeman, it could be an amazing place to live, we knew that our good friend Luke was going to love it, and with him living here we knew that we had even more of a reason to come and visit.
So onward to Yellowstone Park we went, finding our way into the park from the north. Just before the north entrance Josh had found a white water rafting place that promised hilarious guides, lots of white water and amazing sightseeing along the Yellowstone River. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous. No, I was scared. I have never liked the feeling of being so out of control with the immensely strong force of nature that water is. Josh was so excited and I really didn't want to wimp out at the last minute so with a brave face I suited up in a wet suit, listened to the safety talk very carefully, and helped out guide, Carl, push our big yellow raft into the water ahead of the three other rafts that were joining us down the river.
The first rapids we hit felt HUGE, "All FORWARD!" yelled Carl and we dug our paddles in to the white swirling water. As soon as I felt our man power pull us through the first swells I realized that we weren't powerless to the water, we had control, and we had complete faith in our guide to tell us how to maintain that control. We bobbed through slow swells, got extremely soaked in larger white waves and whooped when the raft felt like a tiny toy in a huge whirlpool. I would do it again, I never thought I would feel that way.
The river wildlife was sparse, the fisherman were not. We saw a few Osprey, a Bald Eagle and an antelope rib cage bleached white by the sun. During a slower moment we chatted with the young couple sitting in front of us, we overheard them mention the hot springs they were going to visit later that day and through chattering teeth we invited ourselves along.
After a bumpy ride back to drop our rafts off we followed our new friends to the North entrance of Yellowstone and then to where the Boiling River meets the Gardiner river. The boiling river poured 130 degree water into a much cooler river, making pockets of hot water to soak in. We sat in the water until our teeth stopped chattering and our fingers were total prunes.
It was a nice way to end a very busy, exhausting day. We found a campground in Madison, a village inside of Yellowstone Park. We marveled at the amazing scenery the whole way to our campground and made a plan to get up with the sun to see the wildlife.
The next morning began with Buffalo munching breakfast in misty sage brush flats. We watched a massively antlered male Elk carefully calculate his path through the new growth of pines that had sprung up since the last forest fire, we admired the burps and plops of the mud paint pots and watched the crystal clear cascading of the many falls. It was a splendid morning. After we packed up we headed south to Grand Teton National park, we thought we'd be numb to amazing scenery but boy were we wrong. The Teton's took our breath away...