We drove into the East entrance to the park and the first thing I noticed was all the fire damage. Acres and acres of burned trees all along the mountains, which was a little sad.
But, with that came acres and acres of pretty wild flowers. Very scenic along the lake! (Though apparently not scenic enough to take a picture.)
The second thing I noticed was the wind and the storm clouds. I looked at my little family, dressed in shorts and t-shirts. Then I looked at the temp reading on the car: 55. Oops. In all of my planning I had forgotten to look at the weather forecast that morning! And while I had packed jackets for all of us, I had left them back in Cody!
So what was the first magical thing we did in Yellowstone? Dropping a pretty penny (lots and lots of pretty pennies) at the Fishing Bridge gift shop for jackets for everyone. I have to admit, it was kinda funny. And kind of fun to get jackets for everyone. Now we were totally that tourist family! (At least they weren't all matching. And in fact, Tess and Cole and I all got real jackets (instead of hoodies like Spencer, Josh and Lance) and they are nicer than our other ones!)
*Side note: the cashier was from Taipei, so we had a fun conversation about that. She kept asking me about all the stuff we did in Taipei and I could tell she was a bit homesick. She was also very impressed that we had four kids in our family!*
Decked out in our Yellowstone gear, we headed to our first stop of the day: the Mud Volcano and Sulphur Caldron. First, though, we had a very stern and serious conversation with the kids about where we were going. No running, no horsing around, and ABSOLUTELY NO GOING OFF OF THE TRAIL. Under penalty of death - literally. And for the most part the kids were really good about this, much to our happiness. (Although I did spend the entire trip telling them to stay to the right of the trail, for the love of Pete.)
Spencer quickly became my go-to kid for pictures in front of stinky hot pots and geysers. (Notice the steam in the background.)
In front of the Dragon's Lair or something like that. It was this big, very active, very steamy, very stinky hot pot.
Then a nice lady offered to take our picture for us.
We are totally THAT family in the Yellowstone jackets!!
We took a little hike around the area to look at and smell all of the stinky springs and hot pots and such. And then we came across this big guy:
Our first Yellowstone Bison! It was very exciting. (As you can tell by the number of pictures I took.) A park ranger was following him around, telling everyone to get out of the way. I was far back on the trail with Tess, so I had to pick her up and rush a bit to catch up to Lance and the boys. Adorably, Tess thought the bison was a lion. Not so adorable? The bison kept turning to face us as I quickly walked down the boardwalk - as if he were following us. Fortunately, he stopped once we got to a big group of people a little way off.
You could tell the bison wasn't interested or scared in the slightest by us puny humans. He just walked over the boardwalk and went on his merry way. It was really pretty cool.
Another nice lady offered to take a picture of us in front of the river. Notice that Josh has already taken off his jacket - that boy runs hot. Also, he was mad at me for making him get a jacket instead of a hat he really wanted. (The child never wears hats.)
After a little more sight seeing we decided it was time for lunch. We stopped at a pretty little picnic area, all shaded by huge pines. It was cold but lovely. We were all starved and scarfed down our lunches. I never thought to take a picture of anything except this mystery bug that landed on our table. (Dad, what kind of bug is this?)
Next, it was time for the Upper and Lower falls!
The Upper Falls are pretty, but I really wanted to get a good view of the Lower Falls.
So we decided to take the kids on Uncle Tom's Trail, which was really quite steep and included literally hundreds of stairs to climb down - and back up. But the views were spectacular.
Cole did great; that boy is a natural hiker. Spencer and Josh did well, too, although there was a bit of whining on their part. Tess had to be carried by Lance and I, both up and down. (Lance took the brunt of this chore - what a husband!)
The rainbows in the mist were fun to look at.
Josh coming down some of the stairs.
The bottom landing was surprisingly tiny - and crowded. So I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked. But it was still really amazing - this giant waterfall surrounded by such vertical yellow cliffs! Every time I experience something truly spectacular in nature (like this), I am always spiritually struck at just how truly amazing the earth is. How anyone could see this waterfall and question the existence of a divine creator is beyond me.
My Coler-bear.
The closest thing to a family picture. You can see how happy everyone was about this. (Which makes me love it all the more!)
Spencer... needs a little more work in the picture taking business.
Hiking back up was about as much fun as you would expect. We're lucky it was so cool! The kids were pretty tired once we got back to the car, but I really wanted to hit one of the grand views from above. It was SUPER crowded and Tess was on the brink of a meltdown. But the view was spectacular.
I mean, it seriously looked almost fake. (Tess had an apparent death wish and kept trying to climb over the rocks to the sheer cliff face on the other side.)
Can you believe how huge this firstborn of mine is getting?!
I'm not sure why, but Josh refused to take a picture with the waterfall - he just wanted the cliffs.
Cole, believe it or not, was probably the best behaved child that day. That boy was born to be active; I should make him take strenuous hikes every day!
Remember how Tess was on the brink of a meltdown? She reached that point on the way back to the car. Not. A. Happy. Camper.
This picture was taken literally 30 seconds after we pulled out of the parking lot.
Josh wasn't far behind. (That boy and his glasses... he's so rough on them that they never fit right!)
During the close to two hour drive back home the kids slept and watched a movie while Lance and I decided what to do that night. We had a big guide to Cody (picked up at the hotel in SD) and decided we should hit the free Old West Gunslinger Show and then find somewhere to eat dinner. We got to the show about 15 minutes before it started and were disappointed to find that all of the seats had been sold. However, some nice ladies pointed out that we could sit on the curb of the road for free and have a better view than anyone. Perfect.
Miss Tess was in a MUCH better mood after her nap!
You can see the little set they had in the road - all very portable.
Thumbs up for this awkward selfie.
That's better. Oh - notice my awesome bracelet? Yeah, I made dozens of those things all during our drive west. Josh had a kit but I was the only one willing/able to make them, so everyone in the family had at least one, and I'm pretty sure each of the kids had at least five. Oh, and there was no loom, so I used my fingers, which stung by the end of the week. (Think tying a hundred balloons - same injury to your poor fingers.)
One of the actors giving a gun safety talk to the kids.
Part of the show. Good heavens, was it a free show! We certainly got what we paid for! Okay, it wasn't that bad; I guess I'm just not partial to melodramas and middle-aged dance "girls". Oy. The kids seemed to enjoy it, especially the gun-slinging parts.
After the show we were very disappointed to discover that the restaurant we had planned on going to was closed - as in permanently! It certainly looked open to us because the outside still looked very nice and the exterior lights were on, so the closing must have happened recently. It was some family feed bag called "The Palace Royal" or something like that and looked very Western-Cheesy, but what really appealed to us was the large sign on the front that said "Come As You Are". That was what our family needed!
So we found a local barbecue joint instead. And after a 30 minute wait outside and another 20 minute wait for our food (sheesh!), we all finally got to eat! (This was around 7:30pm - we usually eat around 5:30pm. You can imagine how happy our progeny were.)
Lance had an excellent sloppy joe and I had this butter-soaked (and thus delicious) BLT. The kids all had kid meals, only Josh didn't eat because he kept claiming to be sick. There was one point, after we ordered, where we thought we might have to leave because he just wasn't feeling well, but after he got some root beer into him he felt well enough to stay. (I don't think he was just tired - he really didn't eat.)
After dinner we schlepped home and got everyone into bed. You'd think since they were all so tired this would have been easy, but what a process! I made another trip to The Wal-Marts and then called it a night.
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