Yellowstone Trip Day 5 & 7

Yay! We made it to Yellowstone! Actually that night, we just made it Island Park, Idaho to a house that we had rented, but it is darn close to Yellowstone. When we finally got there that night, we had a great welcome from my parents, Jim's parents and my sister Kim. Did I mention this was a big family thing? I think the extended family really made the trip extra special. We should do that more often! The house was great too, but more about that in a future post. 

We went to Yellowstone Park on Day 5 and Day 7. I just smooshed together all the park pictures I have from everyone and both days into one post, so credit to all of them for some of these pictures.

On both days, Laura and I moved to my Dad's suburban and Jim's parents moved into our van. The kids had walkie-talkies to keep us in contact and to make silly noises back and forth to each other. The two cars pretty much stayed together. There was one hike that they hiked one direction and we hiked the other so that we could drive the van back to the suburban and have lunch. It was fun to pass in the middle! 

Hike? Is that what I said? That's right! Those Grandmas and Grandpas hiked with us, up some hills, out in bear country. At one point, my Mom elbowed her way past Kim and I because we were strolling too slowly. I spent a lot of time worrying about them, but they showed me how ridiculous that was. I guess you have to let them grow up sometime...

Throughout the park, we saw geysers, mud pots, vents, pools, waterfalls, rapids with huge trout swimming upstream and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. In our car, our favorites were the vents that made deep, dragon noises like whoomp...whoomp...whoomp. A close second were the bubbling mud pots spurting up mud with a plop, plop sound. 

Of course we saw Old Faithful. It did not disappoint! 

Morning Glory Pool

ahhh...

PB&Js in the parking lot

Silly hats

Silly kids

Two of kind: imagining the dragon that must live in this cave.

And just for kicks...here's a picture of Jim and me 12 years ago on our first visit to Yellowstone. 

Such baby-faces! 

Yellowstone trip Day 4

Getting closer to Yellowstone!

We chose the southern route so that Jim could go to his favorite spot in the world - Jackson, WY. When we get rich, we will buy a place near here and fly in on our private jet. I'm thinking winters on Coronado Island and summers in the Grand Tetons. 

Going south also meant:

We got to visit Jenny Lake again.

We got to eat at Bubba's BBQ in Jackson again.

(Did both those things on our trip from CA to MN 11 years ago and 

they were so good we had to do it all over again!)

We had to skip Devil's Tower. Sad, but we will just have to go back someday.

Hello Beautiful

On our first trip to Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park, we hiked around the lake and up to Inspiration Point (woo woo). Little did I know, Jim felt very strongly that we had to recreate this experience. I had no idea he was planning on actually spending a lot of time here, so I was unprepared for hours away from the car and a real hike. Not to mention how this disrupted my schedule for the day! I say this all to explain why I spent the entire hike out whining and pissy. Clearly, I'm unused to not being in control. Maybe I could use some practice? 

Anyway, instead of hiking around the lake, we took a boat across to the Inspiration Point trailhead. The water was super choppy and Jim ended up sopping wet by the time we got across.

(Serves him right)

What I mean to say is "Thank you, dear, for shielding us all from the drenching spray!"

A ranger pointed out a bear on a big slab rock right where we were planning to hike. 

Cool that we saw a bear / unfortunate that we were heading into his area.

The kids solved that problem by calling out to him as we walked and clicking rocks together. Who needs bear spray? We have walking noisemakers. 

Inspiration point was worth it.

Jenny at Jenny Lake.

I got myself and my attitude together while enjoying the view and beautiful day.

One of our better family selfies.

I sure have a pretty lake!

The kids started jogging down the trail while we yelled at them to stay in view. That got old, so Jim and I gave in and joined the fun. Everyone verbally agreed to the waiver stating that we had no bandaids for scraped knees, then we trotted down the mountain at our fastest possible speeds. I was surprised at how fun it was! And how it didn't really hurt my ankles or knees! Guess I'm not as decrepit as I thought.

We piled back into the van and headed into Jackson for some BBQ at Bubba's. 

Mmmm...ribs and brisket!

Back in the car and over the only really true mountain pass of the journey. Thankfully, I was driving and Laura seems to have grown out of her serious carsickness. 

We were running hours late and knew the rest of our crew was already at the house. So we stopped at a grocery store on the way to pick up essentials and made it to the house around 9ish, tired, but happy.

Yellowstone Trip Day 3

Guess where we went first? 

The kids loved Mt. Rushmore, can't you tell?

I loved the name 'Borglum'. He was the main sculptor. Say it out loud and you'll love it too! It just feels so funny in your mouth.

Peeky-boo George. 

If you're in shape for walking lots of steps, I highly recommend the little hike at the park. Its a good chance to stretch your legs and is pretty.

Next we travelled down to Wind Cave National Park. We were early for our tour, so we had PB&Honey sandwiches from the cooler. They were sooooo good! I've become a fan of car lunching on vacations. 

The day before, I had stumbled upon a podcast about Wind Cave, so we listened in the car to prepare ourselves. That made it even cooler. This formation in the above picture is box work and 95% of the box work in the world is in this cave (the other 5% is in Jewel cave nearby). Imagine you built a house out of sugar bricks and regular mortar. Then when it rained, all the sugar dissolved away and just the mortar is left. That's what the boxwork is like; the rock dissolved away and the minerals that had seeped in the cracks was left behind. Cool! It makes a lot of sense so I'm amazed you can't find it elsewhere in the world.

This cave was also different for us because it didn't have a lot of big rooms to stop and chat. Lots of long, tight-ish passageways and only a few stops. We all enjoyed it!

After that, we headed to the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs (different from Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone!) for the kids' 2:00 dig appointment. It was a great break while traveling. The kids took their shoes off, got dirty, used all their muscles and were amazed at how huge a mammoth scapula really is!

That night, we stayed in CASPER, Wyoming. Of course we did! So fun to see our name everywhere. I told Jim I really wanted Chinese food, so he found a good one using Yelp which happened to be in an old Pizza Inn in the industrial part of town. Only the best for us! (but it did taste good)

More swimming and sleeping that night. Tomorrow - we finally reach our Yellowstone house (5 hours late).

Meanwhile...

While I'm slowly catching up on Yellowstone post, here's what's been happening in our house this summer so far...

Adam's enjoying Summer in the Park with his best friend Grant.
Laura's been going to summer band at the middle school, figuring out the maze of the school and finding out that she already knows a lot of nice kids going she'll be going to school with from track, church, and elementary.
Both kids have neighborhood friends to visit during the day. Sometimes, I hardly see them, sometimes they are with me all day.

July 4th was perfect! The weekend before, we joined good friends and neighbors for their annual party and fireworks. The day of, the kids and I took out the paddle board with two tubes attached. Those tubes made it so much more fun! There was jumping from tube to board to tube to tube to board, attacking each other's 'ships', cannonballing, tipping each other over...so fun. No pictures because I vowed my phone had to stay in the dry bag (my previous phone is at the bottom of a lake just after I had the brilliant idea that I could read an ebook while on the paddle board). That night, we found a good spot to watch the city's fireworks, while Adam just about fell asleep. Such a great day!

Tons of kids in the street with sparklers. What could go wrong?

The kids and I spent a quick morning at the Como Zoo. They have camps and stuff starting next week, so we decided to enjoy this type of outing while we can. Because we probably haven't been to a zoo in 3 years, they really enjoyed seeing the animals. I think we overdid it a bit when they were little so zoos kind of lost their magic. It was fun to go back.

Ms. Ava is getting a little gray in the muzzle, but still as spry as ever.

Adam made a fidget spinner

Laura's getting comfortable as an altar server.

The kids and I checked out the newly remodeled Children's Museum in St. Paul. We love most of the changes, but there are a few things they took out that were missed, particularly the pretend city.

Yellowstone Trip Day 2 - Part 3

Driving with these two monkeys has never been easier. Certainly, there is technology to thank, but they are also super great kids that keep each other busy and make me laugh a lot.

Underwater breathing masks

A note about beef sticks: just before we left Adam's good friend Grant brought a beef stick to Summer in the Park as a snack. Apparently, that reminded Adam that he loves beef sticks and we spent the entire trip talking about, hunting for, and devouring beef sticks of all flavors, meat origins, quality, and brand. I think good old, original, horrible-for-you, Slim Jim's packaged with a cheese stick was the winner overall.

Just before the Badlands, we stopped at the Minutemen Missile Museum for Jim. Its a quick walkthrough and you'll have to ask him for details because I glazed over as soon as I walked in. 

That night, we stayed in Rapid City, sadly without a pool. The kids took it really well though. See, I told you they are super great. 

Yellowstone trip - animal summary

On the way home, we made a list of all the animals we saw on the trip.  It is a post I don't really have to think about much, so I'm writing it today while I'm feeling lazy.

We saw a ton of wildlife, however there was never that super powerful moment like I remember from last time of a herd of elk or bison swarming the road forcing you to sit still for 30 minutes while they  amble past your window. Or stopping on the side of the road to look through someone else scope to view bears or wolves.

Big Horn Sheep

lots of prairie dogs

Marmot

Marmot

Bison

Scary ravens in the Old Faithful parking lot

Lots of Pronghorn

A Bear at Jenny Lake (we saw him from a boat)

Elk

Cows

Pelicans in North Dakota

Ducks

Seagulls

Goats

Squirrels

Chipmunks

Hawks

Buzzards

Trout (huge ones swimming up rapids in Yellowstone and even bigger ones from a bridge near our house)

2 snakes!

Lizard

And we were minutes away from seeing a mountain goat in the badlands :(

Yellowstone Trip Day 2 - part 2

South Dakota Badlands!

Interesting, beautiful, scary, unique. 

The landscape was cool too!

We hiked the Notch Trail. A guide book said it was a 35 minute walk, the trail head calls it a 1-2 hour hike, and the people just finishing it said it was around 45 minutes and worth it. So we braved the rattlesnakes, a scary ladder, and trails with steep drops at the edge and were rewarded with a gorgeous view and that great feeling of accomplishment.

And I took terrible selfies

And Jim chastised those lands.

"Bad lands, bad bad lands!"

Right in the middle of this shot, you can see the ladder we climbed up.

And, obviously, down.

Such adventurers!

Yellowstone Trip Day 2 - part 1

Our hotels stays were pretty typical for us - lots of swimming pools and Cartoon Network. Teen Titans Go is our family favorite "hotel-show" (since we don't have cable at home), but we seemed to time it wrong on this trip and hardly got to see any of them.  That's OK, we spent more time at the pool and out in the world probably! 

The kids and I discovered a taco shop just a few block from our Sioux Falls hotel that was super similar to Harvest in San Diego - the best taco shop ever. So, we stopped there on the way to pick up Jim at the airport and got a breakfast burrito, a carne asada burrito, and some spicy carrots to welcome him to vacation. Then, on to the next adventure...

The Corn Palace! We've teased about this for years, since we passed it on our way from San Diego to Minnesota 11 years ago. It truly was as a-maize-ing as we had hoped. My Grandma says her Grandpa had a Bingo stand there! Corn you believe it?

Who would have guessed it is a basketball arena? This place is so corn-fusing.

And corny.

Aww shucks, I love this guy

Him too

(nice photo bomb)

And that's just a kernel of the amount of puns that were flying left and right in our car, pretty much the whole trip.