Yellowstone/Wyoming/Keystone, South Dakota

This was a big drive day for us.  It was about 577 miles.  It took us forever to get to South Dakota because we averaged about 50mph.

Leaving Yellowstone we saw a lot of bison.  Twice we had to stop as they walked down the middle of the road right by our car.  That was pretty cool.

We stopped in Cody, Wyoming for brunch because Noah read a book that takes place there and he wanted to see it.  So we ate at a place called Granny's, which was a lot like Denny's.  After Cody we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere for a very long time.  We were the only ones on a two lane highway with nothing around for miles and miles and miles and no cell service.  Very erie!  There is a whole lot of nothing in Wyoming.

We finally hit I-90 and hit Keystone, South Dakota.  We walked around the town, if you could even call it that, got dinner, and went to bed.

The next morning we headed out to Mt. Rushmore which was cool.  After we walked around for an hour we were pretty much down and we weren't leaving the town until Saturday.  We kept ourselves busy by going on the Alpine slides, seeing lots of bikers, going cave exploring, swimming, getting an oil change, frolicking in a summer monsoon and going to Dairy Queen for the first time. 

Yellowstone Day 3 & 4

Tuesday we finally woke up to sunshine.  We were very excited about that.  We decided to take the route to Old Faithful today.

On the way we stopped at Firehole Falls, and Midway Geyser Basin.  We saw the largest hot springs in Yellowstone which gives off steam of different colors.  We also stopped at Yellowstone Lake, which is huge, after Old Faithful.  On the way home we hit the Mud Volcano and Dragon's Mouth, (no pictures, it was raining) while we drove through Hayden Valley.

Once home we went out to eat at The Three Bears.  The kids got a kick out of that and then swam again and went to bed.

Wednesday we took the Northern route determined to see the illusive bears.  We stopped along the way at interesting points.  We saw Mammoth Hot Springs Terrace which were dried up so they weren't very exciting.  We went to park headquarters and got an unofficial tour.  The kids got to learn about all the different jobs their are in the park.  They all want to work there when they get older.  Halfway through our drive we ran into a traffic jam on the road.  We were trying to see what the cause of it was and there were two black bear cubs in the tree playing.  Yea!  We had found the bears.  I asked the park ranger where the mama bear was and he said she was down in the brush laying down.  That's why he was there, to make sure none of us went to find the mother bear.

Lily lost her first tooth when we stopped for lunch at Tower Falls.  We hike down to the river and let the kids go wading in it.  On the way out of the park I thought I had seen something in a tree and so I had Damon pull over.  It was another (or maybe the same) bald eagle.  We were the only ones there to see it.  That was pretty cool.  They really are beautiful birds.  When we got back to civilization we visited the Grizzly and Wolf Center that was right across the street from our hotel.  We saw bears and wolves up close and learned a lot about them.

That night we didn't have a good dinner experience which made us all grumpy.  We went back to our room, packed and went to bed.  We knew we had a long day ahead of us the next day.

Yellowstone Day 1 & 2

Wow!  This place is amazing and truly unique.  We are just blown away with all the landscapes and wildlife we have run into this far into our vacation.

We drove up from SLC to West Yellowstone, Montana.  The drive wasn't to bad.  Just cloudy with a little bit of rain.  It's always exciting to drive to places one has never seen.  We stopped in Idaho Falls for lunch and visited the temple there which is under major reconstruction, so no pictures.

After we checked into our hotel we decided to hit the park.  Not 10 minutes in we saw our first wildlife, a bald eagle.  It was just hanging out on a branch near a river.  We didn't have the telephoto lens so we didn't get a good picture of it.  We also saw deer and bison.

We stopped by Great Fountain Geyser and Fountain Paint Pot.

We came back to the hotel and relaxed and then went to bed.

We woke up to rain the next morning to rain, which wasn't a big deal except that Lily only had sandals.  We spent the morning trying to find a place in town (only 5 streets and no stop lights) that had little kid shoes.  We finally did.  We had some lunch at a place called Gushers, which the kids loved and then stopped at a grocery store for some snacks and headed into the park again.

We saw more cool stuff.  We went to Terrace Hot Springs and saw an eaten bison. Lovely.  We saw Gibbon Falls, Artists Paintpot and Artist point where we saw the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and lower falls. 

We ate dinner and then swam at the pool and then off to bed at a different hotel room than before.