Yellowstone Road Trip – Part Two

Like I mentioned in Part One, we had spent most of Monday in the Grand Tetons, and then we had met up with my parents and grandparents that night in Yellowstone National Park.  We spent the next four days (Tuesday through Friday) in Yellowstone, visiting some of our favorite areas of the Park.

I thought I could fit all four days into one post, but we took so many pictures it looks like it will just be Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Tuesday:  Spotting and Geyser Basins

Daniel and the older boys  woke up early again (5 am) on Tuesday to go out spotting.  My brother David went with them, too.  We enjoyed perfect weather for most of the trip (70s and 80s during the day), but it was a little bit chilly when they went out that early.

Of course that didn’t stop Ollie from finding bugs to put on his head.

They had a great morning, with another close grizzly bear encounter. 

And some bull elk:

Then they came back to the hotel to eat, and we all headed out for the day (this time we didn’t have to pack up the car, because we were staying in West Yellowstone for another night).

Not long after we entered the park, we could see a bunch of cars stopped up ahead of us, and we looked across the river and saw a big black bear.  It was exciting because we hadn’t ever seen a bear in that area before.  We got out and watched him drink from the river, and then he turned around and walked up the hill and out of sight – I’m glad we didn’t miss him. 

Our next stop was at Upper Geyser Basin, where Old Faithful is.  We got there about an hour before Old Faithful was predicted to erupt, so we decided to eat lunch, then see Old Faithful, and then do the walk around the geyser basin.

Picnicking in the shade near Old Faithful:                                                                           

Henry was in heaven with all the logs to jump off of.  He was especially pleased to be wearing his Batman shirt, which gave him extra powers.

Cindy and my little brother David, wearing each other’s hats. 

Cindy was really shy around my parents and grandparents, but she immediately fell in love with David. I’m not sure why – the last time she saw him she was only 2 months old – but I guess he is pretty loveable. She called him “Dabid”, and she was pretty much obsessed with him the whole trip – she was always calling out his name and trying to find him. Whenever we were driving in different cars she would ask about him, and I would tell her that she could see him when we got out; as soon as would get to wherever we were going, she would shout, “Now, Dabid time!” (she organizes her day in different “times” – breakfast time, applesauce time, play time, David time)

Since we have gotten home from our trip she has learned how to say “David” the right way, and I hear her singing to herself all the time, “David loves you, David loves Cindy.” She is so funny.

Old Faithful:                            

The older kids having some “David time” on our long walk around the geyser basin.  He is a good uncle.

Grand Geyser.  I love this one – it is the tallest predictable geyser in the world.  It only erupts every 7 to 15 hours, though, so we were really lucky to be there at the perfect time. 

My mom is still such a good example to me of how to be a good mom – Lizza was hot, thirsty, and tired of walking around and waiting for geysers, and I had kind of been ignoring her because I was dealing with a tired Cynthia. My mom noticed that she just needed some attention, so she took her to a bench and played games with her.                                            

Our family at Morning Glory pool (yay for Cindy napping in the pack):

Lizza getting to know her great-grandma.  Lizza is such a people person, and loves making friends.  She was born with zero shyness, and connects with people instantly.                         

Oliver at Midway Geyser Basin.  Yellowstone has so many cool places like this, where you think it’s just a normal river, but then you see the boiling water running down into it.

My Grandma Joanne (we call her Grandma Jody), on her 83rd birthday.  I love being named after her, and I hope I am just like her when I am 83.

Grand Prismatic Spring:               

Rachel and Oliver in front of Grand Prismatic.  They loved how their shirts kind of matched the scenery.

Fountain Paint Pots.  Henry loved the bubbling mud. 

Cynthia getting a fun ride from Daniel. 

It was a long and fun day.  Everyone was pretty worn out, and this is what the back of our car looked like by the time we got back to West Yellowstone – all six kids asleep. 

We woke them up (which they were sad about) and took them to Gusher’s for pizza (which they were happy about).

They were also happy about going swimming at the hotel after dinner, especially since my brother David joined them.  Crazy thing happened at this pool – when we walked in I noticed a young mom in the pool with her kids, but I didn’t really look at her closely.  After a few minutes I heard someone call my name, and I looked down and it was one of my good friends from high school.  She lives in Washington now, and I haven’t seen her for over 12 years, so it was a pretty big coincidence to not only be in Yellowstone at the same time, but to be staying at the same hotel, and to go swimming at the same time.  We talked the whole time while the kids played, and it was fun to catch up.

Wednesday: Spotting, Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower Falls, and Trout Lake

Wednesday morning Daniel and the boys got up at 5:00 to go spotting again.  Happy 4th of July!  This time both my dad and David went along – my dad was sad about missing the big grizzly the day before.              

They didn’t end up having any luck with finding bears, but they did see these fun yellow-bellied marmots.  Tristan and Oliver used to love finding these in Yellowstone when they were little, and we used to laugh and laugh just to hear Ollie say “yellow-belly marmot” in his cute 2-year old voice. 

Despite the cute yellow-bellies, it would have been a disappointing spotting morning, if they hadn’t seen this next animal – a lone black wolf.  They were pretty close to it, and even got to see it swim across a river, but they only got one picture of it hiding behind the trees.  It ended up being the only wolf we saw at close range on the trip.  So it made up for no grizzlies that morning.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel the kids were entertaining themselves by watching Cindy play the memory game on my kindle.  Then we got everything packed up and ready to go – after our two nights in West Yellowstone, we were moving to a cabin near Cooke City, which is outside the Northeast entrance to the park. 

We stopped in Mammoth to drive around the Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces.  We also ate lunch there and played around for awhile at the picnic area.  Daniel played frisbee with David and the kids, and everyone had fun running around on the grass.  It felt good to be out of the car for awhile. 

Tristan and Oliver racing.  Nice form with that arm there, Tristan.

Cynthia eating all of my dad’s watermelon:

And trying to catch an elk (you can see it hiding under the tree in the background):

Finding flowers with Grandma (my mom):

Rachel with her Uncle David:                

After a nice long break it was time to get back in the car and head down to the next area of the Park.  Ever since we had met up with my parents, Lizza had been constantly trying to arrange rides for herself in their car, or rides for them in our car.  It was getting hard to always meet her needs, so when we were ready to leave Mammoth, I said, “Lizza, for this next drive you get to pick your most perfect seating arrangement ever, and we’ll do it, and then after that for the rest of the trip we’ll just let people ride in whatever car works best, and just say ‘oh, well’ if it’s not how you want it.”  She thought that was a decent plan.

Here she is with her ideal choice:  sitting in the middle seat of our van with her Grandma Orva on one side, and her Great-Grandma Joanne on the other.  She was a happy girl.

Then we saw some pronghorn antelope cross the road right in front of us and stop to eat some flowers:

Our next stop was Tower Falls.  We had planned on hiking down to the bottom of the falls, but it turned out that they had closed the part of the trail that led right up to the falls, so we decided it wasn’t worth hiking all the way down just to see it from a distance. 

Instead we stayed up at the lookout point and took pictures. 

Someone was nice enough to take a picture of our whole group, but then they accidentally didn’t include Cindy.  At least we can see one leg and arm so we know she was there.  I would be sad, except it’s kind of funny.

After that my grandpa treated us all to ice-cream cones.  I told the kids they were reliving my childhood – I have so many memories of Grandpa Ray buying ice-cream and popsicles for all of us grandchildren when we would visit in California or have family reunions in Yosemite. 

Just after we left Tower Junction, we saw a lot of cars stopped, and we knew it would be a black bear (there are always black bears around Tower).  It turned out to be a mother bear with two little cubs.

The cubs were really, really cute. 

Henry watching the bears from my dad’s shoulders.  It was perfect because the bears were down in a little ravine next to the road, so we were able to see them really closely without being in danger. 

Later in the day we hiked up to Trout Lake.  It is a short but pretty steep hike up to a little lake where some river otters live.  Daniel walked all around the lake until he found where the otters were, and then we all walked over to see them.  I love river otters!  They just seem like they have so much fun playing in the water.  They’re always rolling around and tackling each other.  We stayed and watched them for awhile. 

Our family at Trout Lake:

That night we drove to some cabins just outside of Cooke City, where we would stay for the next two nights.  Our family got two adjoining cabins, and they each had a kitchen, which the kids thought was so neat.  It wasn’t a typical 4th of July evening, but sometimes reading Harry Potter in a cozy little cabin outside of Yellowstone is better than fireworks. 

End of Part Two!