yellowstone I

In September - I know, I'm the Queen of slow these days - we took a trip to Utah for Grandma Kathy's 90th birthday via Yellowstone and Wyoming. We didn't make it very far out of the gate before we needed to stop for dinner. The troops played boccie ball while the pizza cooked - LOVE the RV!

We split up from Mom, Dad and Julie, and Uncle Tom traveled with us. Our first stop was the 6th crossing of the Sweet Water up in WY. I haven't (yet) had the pleasure of participating in 'Trek,' but holy smokes. I can't even imagine crossing the plains with all your possessions fit into that cart, let alone doing it in a WY winter. That water was bitter cold. The missionaries at the Visitor's Center were all getting ready to pack up and go home in a few weeks.

I read somewhere that Yellowstone has more geothermal features than anywhere else in the world. This fact was not enough to distract the kids from the smell of some of those features.
They did all like the 'bubble geysers' - Max in particular. He still talks about them. Although some of our friends did get a little tired waiting for Old Faithful to go.

We saw tons of wildlife - which Julie did a much better job of documenting. Tons of bison, a moose, elk, wolves eating something out in a field, but alas, no bears.

The kids did great walking down all those millions of stairs on the hike for the Upper and Lower Falls. Katie walked almost the entire way, scoring a piggy back ride from Julie only near the end.

So many boardwalks! I really liked the terraces.

Camping inside of the park = sardines. Camping outside in West Yellowstone = Best.Campsite.EVER. We made dinner in the parking areas for different geysers every night, and ended up setting up camp after dark. This was OK, except that we had to make peach cobbler for breakfast one morning because we didn't ever have the chance to make it for dessert. Uncle Tom slept with us, while Julie, Mom and Dad roughed it in a hotel.

Next time we go, it would be nice to spend more than a couple days in the park. It was great to go when there were so few people about. We took a few breaks on our way south to Utah, and the whirlwind tour continued . . .