One activity on our summer bucket list was to go camping and to go to Yellowstone. Our summer bucket list spilled into the end of Septmember, but we did it! And luckily 3 days before our stupid government decided it would be in our best interest to shut down all the National Parks. But this is supposed to be a happy post, so I won't go off on my feelings about that.
Anyways, we had been waiting for my parents to come up here so that we could go camping with them. They just bought a trailer as my mom's retirement gift, so we figured if it go too chilly the boys could go sleep in there with them. Well, my parents needed to come up here at the beginning of September, not the end of September, because at the end of September, it is already freezing here! Like in the 20s at night freezing! Luckily we have the best neighbors ever and they let us borrow their tent trailer. I LOVED it! No more tents for me please. I know what I want for Christmas now! We ended up camping at Rainbow Point Campground just north of West Yellowstone in Montana. It was a beautiful campground right next to a big lake and surrounded by lots of beautiful trees! I love being in a forest! Plus the campground was pretty empty and the best part is it had electrical hookups on one of the loops! Lights, an electric hot plate, and electric heaters are so cozy when you're camping in freezing weather! We were even able to download The Croods and have a family movie night. Now that's my kind of camping!
Brodie was just finishing up a cold, so the first day we were there he had a permanent dirt-booger mustache. I realize this will disgust most of you, but I thought it was so cute!
On Saturday we headed to Yellowstone Park. We had excellent luck in that it was a free fee day and saw lots of animals, but a bit of bad luck in that it continued to be freezing cold and created so much steam that the beautiful bubbling pools were near impossible to see.
Ryker excited to see his first buffalo!
Probably the clearest pool we saw the whole day
The kids were a little chilly
More buffalo!
Mari is awesome! She was such a good girl the whole time!
The boys wanted to look at this "Mini Volcano" and after we looked at it for about a minute it started erupting! Perfect timing!
Buffalo within touching distance... from inside our car. These things are so big!
Some quote worthy things said by the boys that need documenting.
Ryker: "We're going to see buffffffaloes and elllllk and moooose and beeeaarrrs, but no tigers or giraffes."
Brodie after we entered the park: "I thought Yellowstone was going to be more yellow."
Brodie seeing the following sign at Old Faithful: "Dad, there's no skate boarding here."
When we first got to Old Faithful there were a couple people sitting on a bench near us and we asked them when the geyser was supposed to go off. They said 2:45, which was in just a few minutes, so we sat there for 20 minutes and nothing happened. Then a ranger walked by and we asked her and she said 3:30. So we went into the lodge and got some hot chocolates.
Bo and Brodie went back out to watch the geyser erupt.
The rest of the crew enjoyed our view from inside the warmth of the lodge.
Ryker loved this giant bear. He kept hugging it.
This pool was supposed to be super pretty... stupid steam.
And the Prismatic Pool, which is the only one I was really excited to see, was invisible because of the steam.
There's a buffalo crossing that river!
Firehole Canyon and Falls.
I thought we were going to be able to cross off the west side of the park, but I think we're going to have to revisit it again since we couldn't see the pools very well. Good thing we'll be here for at least a few more years!
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