Yellowstone!

We have been waiting for this vacation for a couple of years, always tentatively planning it for the next spring, next summer, next fall... Finally the long awaited season arrived! I had so much fun planning what we would do and see, where we would stay - but I'd really had no idea, until I got into the actual planning, how much there is to choose from. We left on a Sunday evening after dinner to get most of the way there without wasting a day and spent the night in Idaho Falls. Immediately after breakfast (which included our first full water cup spilled), we zipped up the highway to West Yellowstone, Montana and checked out the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center.

I think it was totally worth it, seeing big bears and wild wolves up close, as well as a live birds of prey show and all the info gleaned from the Discovery Center staff. We ate a quick lunch (chocolate milk spilled) and then officially entered Yellowstone National Park! We went straight to the Old Faithful area, listened to a ranger talk about that one and all the park's geysers, and had time to check out the beautiful original log building that is the Old Faithful Inn, and still had about a 15 minute wait to watch her blow. The youngest kids' patience was pretty thin, but we were all excited once she got going!

After that fun, we got back in the car and toured our way northward toward our "cabin" room for the night up at Mammoth Hot Springs, stopping when we felt like it. We totally scored by deciding to stop at the Fountain Mud Pots walkway as the (somewhat rare and erratic) Fountain Geyser was going off. (I did get better pictures of the geyser, but not with my family in them :)

We made up to Mammoth fairly late in the evening, having seen only a handful of individual bison, and ate a great meal in the dining room there (more spillage, plus crayon throwing). Our room was not so very cabin-like, but small and quaint and perfect except for the late in/early out adjoining roommates. In the morning we ate a breakfast of muffins and fruit we'd brought in with us, packed up and hit the road heading east through gorgeous countryside to the Lamar Valley. Our goal for the day: see animals!!

And so we did, coming upon a friendly chipmunk on our first little detour, and then a strolling lonely bison, and a couple of spritely pronghorn antelope, and then a group of wolf-spotters with their scopes on a small pack (but we all lacked the patience for them to come back into view). Finally we came upon our first herd of bison! Glorious sight, complete with young ones and kicking up dust on their way to a winding river. The place we stopped to watch them migrate happened to also have a couple of osprey and their nest.

Some of our animal-longing satiated, we stopped and hiked a bit by a little stream and made our PB&J sandwiches for lunch. Then we headed back west across the Lamar Valley and then south through waterfall region and to "the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone".

We reached our "cabin" at the Lake Lodge in plenty of time to enjoy an early dinner (juice spilled), unpack, and then check out the road east of the Fishing Bridge along Yellowstone Lake. We saw a herd of she-elk and experienced a beautiful sunset along the waterfront, and even managed to run around the Dragon's Mouth/Mud Volcano area (stinky!) before the light was gone completely.

Our room by the Lake was, I think, ever so slightly bigger than the previous night's lodging but still cozy and efficiently appointed. I was truly impressed with both places we stayed inside the park, not least of all because of the prominent recycling bins and the paraben-free lotion & shampoo. In the morning it was more muffins and fruit followed by just a bit of exploring on our way south and out of Yellowstone. One last little waterfall hike.

David's favorite thing was to hold Mark and/or Isaac's hand and walk himself along the trails - no matter how steep! He was too slow for us once we hit the big hikes in Grand Teton National Park though, and into a carrier he went for those.