Yellowstone Road Trip–Part Three

Here are all the pictures from our last two days in Yellowstone.

Thursday

Daniel, Tristan, and Oliver got up early again with my dad and David.  This black bear right next to the road was the main highlight of the morning:

Back at the cabins Rachel and Lizza were having fun playing around and running back and forth between our cabins and the cabin where my parents and grandparents were staying.  We really liked the cabins – they were a fun change from all the hotels. 

Henry and Cynthia felt so cozy and comfortable they slept in until 9:00 am, which never happened in our hotels.  It was so nice to let them catch up on sleep while the girls played outside.

Here’s Henry enjoying his breakfast after he finally woke up:

About 15 minutes later Cindy finally popped her head out of her tent like a little grizzly bear coming out of hibernation (except more cheerful, probably). (And the reason she was sleeping in a tent is because it takes up way less room in the car than a porta-crib.  Plus you can zip up the door):                    

The boys all came back from spotting around 10:00.  After that the plan was to drive up the Beartooth Highway for awhile, and then come back to the cabins for lunch.

The Beartooth Highway is a 70-mile highway from Cooke City to Red Lodge, MT.  It is very scenic and has been called the most beautiful drive in America.  It is also pretty intense to drive;  the road is full of switchbacks and huge elevation changes.  By the time you reach the top the elevation is almost 11,000 feet, and you feel like you’re driving around on the top of the world. 

We’ve driven part of it before, but never completed the whole drive to Red Lodge.  About halfway up the highway we asked my parents (who were driving behind us with David and my grandparents) if they were up for a change of plans – we decided to finish the whole drive and then eat a late lunch in Red Lodge. 

Once we reached the top of the switchbacks we pulled over to a scenic overlook and let the kids get out and walk around.  It was so pretty in every direction – wildflowers, a lake, and lots of snow on the mountains. 

I thought it would be a good spot for a family picture, but Tristan was asleep in the car so we made do with just 7 of us.  Except it looks like 6 1/2 because Lizza is trying to hide behind Henry.  She was super thrilled about the camouflage pants and green jacket she was wearing, and she kept trying to test out her camouflage skills all day.  Henry also had army pants on, but Lizza said he couldn’t play the camouflage game because of his colorful jacket.  I told him to just pretend he was hiding in a jungle on bottom with a rainbow on top, and he was cool with that. 

And I can’t tell if Lizza has been teaching Henry her gang signs, or if he’s just trying to give some sort of thumbs up signal:                                   

Once we got to Red Lodge we found a fun little Mexican restaurant called Bogart’s.  The whole restaurant was full of Humphrey Bogart posters and memorabilia.  I guess the owners were big fans. 

After lunch we hopped back in the car to take the long drive back to Cooke City.  Rachel did not appreciate having to endure the curvy road again, and she got pretty carsick.  We found a good spot to pull over so she could get out and get some fresh air. 

Daniel took Lizza and Henry across the street so they could touch the snow.  Henry especially was impressed with all the snow up in the mountains – the last time he saw snow was when we went to Utah when he was only one, so he doesn’t really remember it. 

Then we decided to make it a little bit more of an adventure, so we let the kids climb down to a giant snow field off to the side of the road. 

Tristan and Oliver running after my brother David across the snow:

Daniel with Lizza and Henry.  Henry was soaking wet by the time they made it back to the car from falling down so much:

Rachel with some ginger ale; trying not to throw up. (Side note: that dent in her forehead is from a few days before when the kids were playing around on all the logs by Old Faithful – she was an innocent bystander to a game of teeter-totter, and somehow one end of the log flew up and whacked her in the head.  It’s been a month now and the dent is still there.)                 

After awhile she decided to join the others – the snow was just too tempting:

Here is a little fox we saw on the drive back.  It was just trotting along the side of the road.  I think foxes are pretty neat – maybe because they are so unusual to see in the wild.  This is only the second one we’ve seen ever. 

It was raining when we got back to Cooke City that afternoon.  We decided to go into Yellowstone and drive around for awhile to see if we could find any animals.  But first Rachel threw up all over the front porch of our cabin (it turned out that the little stop to play in the snow hadn’t really helped her carsick-ness much). 

We drove through the rain for a little while without much luck.  Then right after we passed Tower Junction, I looked out my window (I was driving) and I saw this little black bear climbing up the hill:

I was super excited about finding this bear.  Usually when we see bears in Yellowstone it is either because there are a bunch of cars stopped and we look around the area until we find what they’re looking at, or Daniel finds one on his own.  In all my trips to Yellowstone, this was the first bear that I found just by looking out the window and noticing it first, without anyone else seeing it.  I kind of wanted to stay there forever just watching it, because it was such a proud moment.  I’m sure I had a goofy smile on my face for the next 15 minutes after we drove on. 

Here’s Cynthia attempting to use the binoculars to find a bear of her own:

And Rachel and Lizza later that evening, all worn out and enjoying their last night of sleeping at the cabins:

Friday

Friday was our last day in Yellowstone.  We packed up our stuff and left the cabins that morning, and then headed into the park. 

I love this picture of Daniel pointing out a bear up on the hill to my grandma and grandpa: 

We also saw this mother black bear with two little cubs (they are hiding by the log right by her feet):

And this coyote walking along the road:

Then Daniel showed us the spot where he and the boys had found all the yellow-bellied marmots on one of their early-morning spotting trips.

Checking out the marmots:

Here is Daniel helping Henry perform what they called “The Spiderman Jump.”  Henry loved this move, and requested it probably 400 more times during the rest of the trip.

Our next stop was at the Canyon area to see the falls.  We started out at the brink of Upper Yellowstone Falls.                                                                                          

I love this place, but it always makes me nervous because you stand right by where the river rushes over the cliff, and it is so powerful.  I’m always nervous about either dropping or throwing something over, or accidentally jumping over the fence and going down the waterfall.  I told this to Daniel once, so now he makes sure he’s the one holding onto the little kids when we look over the edge:

Scary, right?

A few more Spiderman jumps on the walk back to the car:

Next we drove over to another overlook across from Upper Falls:

My Grandma and Grandpa Linford (my mom’s parents) with all my kids at the overlook:

We also took some 4th generation pictures with my girls:

And did lots more Spiderman jumps:                                                                        

And other crazy kinds of jumps that I don’t even know what to call.  Their faces make me laugh so hard, Ollie’s especially:

After the jumping we drove over to Artist Point to see Lower Yellowstone Falls.  Elizabeth chatted with her great-grandparents the whole way down to the overlook:

Lower Yellowstone Falls:

My Grandma and Grandpa Linford.  I’m so glad they were able to join us on our trip – I loved that my kids were able to really get to know them.O

Our family at the overlook:

The kids with my mom and dad.  We had such a good time with them.  I really miss living close.

Friday afternoon after we saw the falls is when we went our separate ways – my parents headed back through West Yellowstone to go home to Utah, and we drove out the East entrance road, toward Cody, Wyoming.

But first we stopped to see Yellowstone Lake.  I love the lake – it is gigantic, and seems to go on forever.  The older kids had fun learning how to skip rocks, and the younger kids had just as much fun throwing handfuls of pebbles in the water.  We hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so I got out a bunch of our leftover food from the week and brought it down on the beach.  It was a perfect and relaxing picnic in a beautiful spot. 

 

Henry found a nice place to rest while he enjoyed his apple juice:

Washing his hands off in the lake after lunch.  Two things about this picture make me happy – one, I love eating outside near water because clean-up is so easy; it didn’t matter if they spilled their chips in the rocks or got sticky cantaloupe juice all over their hands.  Also, I told Henry when we first got to the lake that I didn’t want his feet to go near the water.  I couldn’t believe that he actually listened and obeyed;  he didn’t go in the water one time.  And when I asked him to wash his hands off, he had the idea to lay down on his stomach so that he could put his hands in the water without having his feet get too close.  I love him. 

Skipping rocks:

Throwing rocks:                       

Spiderman jumps:

And what looks like two sisters peacefully enjoying the lake together:

But it was really just Cindy eating all of the treats out of Rachel’s trail-mix.  She totally takes advantage of Rachel’s kindness.                   

Six in a row, holding hands:

After lunch we finally left Yellowstone and drove to our hotel in Cody.  Cynthia settled right back into her hotel routine, first by doing a “set-up” with all of her toys:

And then by organizing all of the granola bars into straight lines: 

For dinner we went to a great restaurant in downtown Cody.  The food was really good, but I think my kids’ favorite thing was that the table was covered with paper that they could draw on.  I don’t think Henry even noticed his food.

And our waiter was very impressed with Oliver’s artistic abilities – he kept calling other waiters over to the table to check out his crazy drawings. 

After dinner we did some swimming at our hotel. 

And when Daniel joins us at the pool, there is a lot of this going on:

Which makes everyone happy.

Since Cody is the rodeo capital of the world, we decided it would be really fun to take the kids to a rodeo while we were there.  In my mind we go to rodeos all the time, but really the last time we had gone to one was when Elizabeth was only one, and it was over 4 years ago.  So they didn’t remember it much. 

With an 8:00 start time, it was a little too late at night for Cynthia, so Daniel took the older five.

It turned out to be a little late for Henry, too, but he tried his best to be a good sport.

And the older kids loved it, too. 

That’s it for part three, and the trip is almost over (just South Dakota and Mount Rushmore left).