SUMMER ROADTRIP 2014: Yellowstone - Day 1

The thing about Yellowstone is that it is SO FREAKIN' BIG!  Seriously, we spent a ton of time in the car getting there and just driving around the place.  We knew going in that there would be no way to see everything in the park we wanted to see.  So we decided to make an effort to see the things we really wanted to see, and then everything else we got to see would just be a bonus.

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.

SUMMER ROADTRIP 2014: Our Experience with VRBO

So when trying to plan a trip for 6 to Yellowstone I quickly realized that lodging would cost an arm and a leg if we tried to stay in the park. (Not to mention the fact that most of the rooms were already booked at least a year out.)  So after doing some searching on the interwebs I decided we'd try VRBO.com, which is a website where you can rent other people's homes while on vacation.  We found a place in Cody, Wyoming that seemed perfect for our family - about an hour outside of the park, big enough to easily sleep all of us, included a washer and dryer, not scary looking, and - get this - only $95 a night.

I mean, seriously, $95 a night?  That's crazy good!  So we booked it.  I have to admit, even with all of my research online, I was still just slightly nervous about this whole thing.  Would the house be as advertised?  Would my kids behave in it or destroy everything?  What if the owner was a whacked out serial killer?

Turns out my fears were completely unfounded. (I know, crazy.) The house was great and just as advertised!

I never got a chance to take pictures of the house because we were always on the move or I was down at the local Wal-Mart picking up lunch for the next day.  I thought that I could just steal some images online, but it won't let me.  So here's the link to the house we stayed at, if you want to look at the pictures.  As you can see, very country-eclectic in decorating. (But who cares at $95 per night?!)

The only drawback to the whole experience was that the house didn't have AC, which I didn't realize until that night.  But that wasn't even that bad, since it cooled off a bit at night and there were lots of fans.  Spencer and Josh slept in a kind of added on living room which got really hot, but they didn't seem to really care.  Actually, Josh kinda slept everywhere in that house; I'm not sure why.  We were there three nights and each night he slept on a different lounger or couch.  Weirdo. Tess was very happy having her own room right next to ours, complete with daybed very similar to hers at home!

Cole, however, freaked out the first night. He could NOT figure out why were in this strange house and sleeping there!  He kept saying "No, NO!  We cannot stay here!  We don't belong here!"  We finally got him settled down and to sleep, and he eventually really liked the idea of having his own room.

So in the evenings I would go down to the local Wal-Mart and pick up stuff for lunch in the park for the next day.  In the mornings we would just eat breakfast at the house. (I served oatmeal one day, which was NOT well received.  We stuck to cold cereal after that.) And then for dinners we just went out to eat in Cody, since I was pooped from trekking around Yellowstone all day.

Apparently the owner just lives down in the basement and rents out the upstairs all year long.  Only while we were there he was at his other house "out on the lake", so we didn't see him at all.  On the last night we were there his dog was back home (not sure why), but this was sweetest, best behaved dog ever!  It was some sort of poodle mix, medium sized, and named Panda.  All she wanted was a little attention and a good belly rub.  I liked having the dog, but the kids freaked out over it a little bit.  It was kinda funny.

Would I stay in Cody again for a trip to Yellowstone?  Maaaybe.  It took us a good 2 hours to get to anywhere good in the park, and that's a lot of driving.  But Cody itself was fun and kind of charming in a touristy-Western way.  And I would totally recommend VRBO - it worked out great for us!

SUMMER ROADTRIP 2014: The Drive Out - or - Great American Kitsch!

Good heavens, I think this is the longest blogging break I have ever been on.  I had all intentions of blogging during our vacation, but it just didn't happen.  We were really busy and I tried really hard to get to bed at a decent time most nights so I wouldn't be wasted the next day. So I will try to catch up as best I can over the next few days.

Just know that our trip was Awesome. (With a capital A.) And long. But mostly awesome.

This year we decided to make a little detour on our way to Utah.  Instead of driving straight through on I-80, we took a northerly route so we could spend a few days in Yellowstone. This meant two long days of driving just to get to Yellowstone, then another long day from Yellowstone to Provo, all the driving while in Utah (and there was a lot), and then two long days home.

It was a lot of driving.

But my children were champs.

I'm not saying they were perfect.  There was still a bit of whining, a little crying, some yelling and threats (from us), fights in the back seats we could ignore, fights in the back seats we couldn't ignore...  But overall?  My kids are excellent travelers.

I did most of the same things I did for our last roadtrip: new games and toys for each child, a notebook full of facts and games and stuff for where we were going, tons of DVDs, and - most importantly - snacks.  Remember all of those snack sized Ziploc bags I scored for so cheap at Sam's Club a while ago?  I figured out that those fit perfectly into the cheapo Sterlite shoe boxes, which happen to fit perfectly under the seats of our van.  So I put personal portions of tons of random snacks into the bags and threw them at to hangry children throughout the drive.

I am - and I cannot state this clearly enough - a genius.  Well, at least when it came to the snack thing.  Seriously, the kids loved it and it made life one-bazillion times easier than portioning snacks out into cups or whatever it was that I used to do.  We are never going back to the old and now-forgotten method of snacking on road trips.

Okay, so, the trip.  Here's a map that I made the kids so they could follow where we went. (It's not perfect, but close.)

So we drove and drove and drove some more.  And it wasn't that bad.  We had lots of potty breaks and stopped for lunch... somewhere, I don't remember now... maybe in Iowa?  And we drove and Tess and Cole realized, after asking several times each if we were there yet, that we were serious when we said we were going to drive a long, long ways.

In the late afternoon we finally made it to our first "big" stop: the famous Corn Palace of Mitchell, South Dakota.  What?!  You've never heard of the Corn Palace?!?!  Well, you are not alone.  None of us had.  But I had read something about it on Trip Advisor and there were tons of billboards for it and we all needed a break out of the car, so off we went.

First we had to get a pictures in front of the big fiberglass ear of corn.

Here's the Corn Palace itself.  It's under a bit of construction, so it's not nearly as grand as it normally is, I'm sure.

See all the mosaics and stuff on the side?  All made of corn!  Very exciting!

The inside was this big arena, with stadium seating on one end, a stage on the other, and then on the basketball court in this middle was all this corn stuff/souvenirs/whatever you could ever hope to buy.

We browsed, and I was very tempted to buy a corn keychain to put next to my cabbage keychain, so then when people asked about it I could say "Oh, I got the cabbage keychain on a quick trip to Taipei, but I got the corn keychain while traveling in SOUTH DAKOTA!!"  But the chance of that ever happening was not worth the $10 they were asking for the corn keychain.  Oh well.

Spencer gave a thumbs up for the idea of gummy corn.

Josh was not fond of the idea of gummy corn. (I had to agree.)

We of course had to take the obligatory corny pictures.

And some on the tractor as well.  Because if there's a tractor inside, it must be climbed on and photographed!

As you can see, the place was pretty big and could hold a fair number of people.  As you can also see, our little family lowered the median age of visitors by quite a bit.

That night we stayed at a hotel in the metropolis of Oacama, SD. (Population 460.)  We got a suite with three queen beds in it.  We were all exhausted and travel weary, but that didn't stop Tess and Cole from staying up all hours of the night giggling and talking and being generally naughty.  Lance and I finally gave up and fell asleep before they did.  Rotten kids.

The next day we had an early - but MUST SEE - stop: Wall Drug. If you've ever driven within 500 miles in any direction of Wall, SD, then you've seen the billboards for Wall Drug.  For a detailed history of the place, click the link, otherwise, just know this: it is a big tourist trap.  And we knew that going in, so we knew what we were getting into.

It was pretty amazing.  It was huge and kitschy and crowded!  Stuffed to the gills with knick knacks and signs and statues and stuff to buy.

These types of statues of wild west types were everywhere.

Here's the courtyard in the middle of the complex.

Here's a giant stuffed gorilla who would play the piano for $.50.  (We did not deem it worthy of $.50.)

There was also, of course a giant jackalope for the kids to climb on.

Tess refused to get on, in case you're wondering.

There was also - of course - a giant animatronic dinosaur that growled and made a fuss every 12 minutes.  So we had to stick around for that.

Terrifying!!

The walls of this place are just covered in photos from the 1800's and knick knacks and things.  I thought this display of the different types of barbed wire was a good representation of what you would find.

See all the photos on the walls?

Here's part of the cafe, but it wasn't that crowded yet.

Watching the dinosaur - these three would not get close to it at all!

We decided to have ice cream for lunch at the Wall Drug.  They had kind of an old-timey ice cream counter.  The kid who served us was German, which was interesting.

Spencer got pumpkin pie.

Tess got "pink". (Strawberry.)

Josh got vanilla.

Cole got chocolate - so did I.  It wasn't that great. (Not gross - just maybe not the $2.89 we paid for each cone!!!)

And goofy Lance got raspberry.

After lunch we loaded up again and made our way to our next - and biggest - stop of the drive out: Mt. Rushmore!

I have seriously always wanted to go to Mt. Rushmore, but not enough to ever just make a trip out of it.  Since it was pretty much on the way (as much as it ever would be on any drive) we decided to go.

We braved the crowds, paid the ridiculous $11 to park, and walked through the heat to see this.

You know what?  It was pretty cool.  I mean, it was a lot closer than I expected it.  It's an American icon!

But it was hot.  And crowded.  And my kids were not very happy.  A nice lady offered to take our picture, but Spencer kept freaking out about how bright it was.

So instead of putting his arms up he hid behind us.  That punk.  So these are the closest I'll ever get to having a family picture at Mt. Rushmore.

Mr. Cole with the Mr. Presidents.  Cole was pretty impressed.  When we came up the hill and saw it he kept saying "Oh look! On the hill! There they are! Oh look!"

A few pictures either Spencer or Josh took - I can't remember now. George's head was cut off in this one, so we had to try again.

 Tess would have none of it.  She probably couldn't figure what all the hubbub was about.

Growly growl.

So before our trip I made my boys read books about Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone, because I'm that kind of mom.  And Spencer wanted a picture on the avenue of flags because in one of the books it basically said (and I am not exaggerating here) "Every tourist with a camera HAS to take a picture on the avenue of flags at Mt. Rushmore", which we thought was pretty funny.  Since we had a camera we HAD to take a picture.

By this point we had only been at the park a good 30 minutes, but we were all ready to leave.  The kids were in no mood for hiking or the museum, and really, if you're not going to do that what else are you going to do?  (Besides take pictures.)  So we made a quick stop at the gift shop for a refrigerator magnet (because that's what we do) and got back into the car.

Where we drove very slowly behind a dang motor home. (These became the bane of our trip.) Seriously, buddy, just pull over.

But we did get to see George peeking through the pines, so that was awesome.

More George... and the motor home.

We finally ditched the motor home, only to hit a lot of road destruction.  Trying to get out of that blasted state was kind of a pain.  But look how happy our children were!

 The aforementioned road destruction.

So very happy! (I think we were just all glad to be back in the air conditioned car.  It was hot!)

So we drove and drove and things were pretty boring in Wyoming (as they are wont to be) until we hit the Big Horn mountains, which were pretty spectacular.  Only it's hard to get pictures from a moving car (we weren't willing to stop).

And there were signs everywhere telling you which prehistoric era the rocks had been formed during.  A geologist dream, I guess.

And at one point we got stuck behind a ginormous RV going up the pass, but he was kind enough to let us by.  But then on the way down we stuck behind this Camry who, I can only guess, was terrified out of his gourd about going down the pass and only went like 35 MPH.  You can imagine how happy that made Lance, who was driving.  It seriously probably added a good 30 minutes to our drive, he was going that slow, and there was no way to pass him.  Curse you, terrified man in the Camry!

So we got out of the mountains and drove and drove and drove for what seemed like an eternity (but it wasn't really - it was just at the end of two long days of driving) until we finally got to Cody, WY, which would be our home base for the next three days.

FOUND!!!!!

I know I have a billion other things I need to blog about, but I JUST FOUND JOSH'S LOST SANDALS!! After I bought him another pair in Utah, of course. They were in a random box in his closet.

Josh still claims no knowledge of how they got there.

I don't know whether to growl or laugh. Maybe both will do.

(Silver lining? Maybe they'll fit Cole next year...)