Anyway, the map told us it would take 5 hours, but add in stops for food, potty and the stupid roadwork, it took almost 8. Seriously, roadwork on a two-lane road! It was dumb. And the kids let us know it. Over, and over, and over, and over again. At one point, we had had enough of their whining that we let them out of their seat belts since we were just sitting there for almost an hour not moving. But in all seriousness, I don't blame them. I really wanted to get out of my seat belt too.
We finally rolled into Yellowstone around dinner time and checked in at the Madison campground. Madison is one of the nicer campgrounds, meaning it has running water and you have to have reservations. Dave was only able to get us a reservation for the first night, but when we checked in, somehow he sweet-talked his way into getting reservations for all three nights. Although, it is possible he may have just slipped them a fifty...I didn't ask. I was just happy we wouldn't have to move camp three times.
We got to our site and set up camp! I was impressed and how helpful Cruise & Jett were with setting up the tents. And they did a really good job! Dave got my bed set up in the van; both the big tent and the van had a queen blow-up mattress, and the small tent was used for storage (coats, fishing stuff, dirty clothes, etc.)
Once camp was up, I started dinner. I had prepared hobo dinners for us with red potatoes, chopped up steak, peas & carrots, cream of mushroom soup and seasoned with dried onion soup packets. The boys said dinner looked gross, but they all actually really enjoyed it! So, go me!
After dinner, we cleaned up and took a stroll down to the Firehole river to explore a bit. Dave wanted to see if he could find any hot spots in the river. There weren't any significant warm places, but it was breathetaking to just be out there. Everything was gorgeous. Cruise found a dragonfly with a hurt wing, so he picked it up and carried it on his stick for a little while.
After our walk, we came back to camp and made s'mores with peanut butter cups.
In the morning we had scrambled eggs, sausage, hot cocoa and orange juice.
After breakfast, we thought we'd make our way to the sights! Our first stop was Fountain Paint Pot, where there were a couple pools, geysers, steam vents and, of course, a "paint pot".
Next, we drove to Old Faithful. On the way down, we got to see a few buffalo wandering around, but overall, it was just scenery. No bears.
When we got to Old Faithful, there was already a huge crowd surrounding it. It was super hot that day so we decided to hang out in the shade and let the boys play with the logs while we waited. It finally went off after a half hour or so and of course Jett was nowhere to be found for that first picture. We did eventually find him playing with a few other kids and got his photo.
After the big show, we headed over to the gift shop and the boys bought a couple souvenirs. Jett bought a really nice pocket knife with a 'J' carved into it (that I was not super thrilled about but Dad already said he could get it), Cruise got a survival multi-tool and a wallet, and Miles got a little bag of rocks that he got to pick out. He was especially excited about his blue rock. Dave and I bought a baseball cap.
After shopping, we drove back to our campsite for some lunch and then put on swimsuits so we could cool off in the river. Dave started to get things ready to fish, when a couple rangers stopped him and said he needed a special fishing license, so unfortunately he didn't get to fish. But the boys had a lot of fun playing in the river and cooling off. Miles and I sat and tried to find big rocks to throw back into the river.
After cooling off, we got dressed and decided to go for a little drive. Miles finally got a nap along the way and we got to discover the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and scouted out where we would go hike the next day.
We went back to camp and made dinner. We had BBQ chicken breasts and green beans. Luckily it turned it great and the kids ate it...even though it doesn't look like it.
After dinner, we decided to go to the Grand Prismatic since it was finally cooling off outside. On our way over, we came across a couple female moose and two baby moose.
I think the Grand Prismatic was my favorite place other than the Grand Canyon because of the really neat bacteria mats. It was just so neat to see!
1 comment:
Wow, what a fun vacation! Looks like it was a great time. The photos and videos are great. Thanks for posting all of them. Maybe we can still go to Yellowstone before long. Love you!
- Dad
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