Wilbur always knows when we're getting ready to leave. He was such a sad dog on the morning we took off on vacation.
We took off, prepared for a 12 hour drive to get us to Rock Springs, Wyoming.
It was a good day of driving, nothing too special.
The boys snuggled in and thanks to technology, things never got too crazy in the car.
Rock Springs was a lovely town. We settled in at our hotel and then set off to find supper. We'd had sandwiches and fruit and snacks in the car during the day so we were all ready for something a bit more interesting for supper.
We found a local brewery and had delicious food. Then we briefly visited their farmer's market and went back to the hotel.
Levi was determined to swim! Noah wasn't interested - tweenage angst showing itself - so I took Levi down to the over-chlorinated pool so he could burn off some energy.
The next morning we hit the road and discovered that Wyoming pretty much looks like this.
And then we hit the Wyoming jackpot! We stopped for a bathroom break in a random town and discovered a food truck across the street.
A mini-donut food truck and it was amazing!
The boys each got birthday cake donuts and Ben and I shared the jalapeno popper mini donuts.
Then we crossed up into Idaho for a bit.
There we got some new scenery - fields and fields of potatoes
and wheat! What a lovely change of scenery from the brushy-scratchy-harsh terrain of Wyoming. Although, to be fair, I found Wyoming to be beautiful in it's own way.
And finally, Montana. Woo hoo we made it!
We met up with Ben's parents, helped get the camper parked, leveled, situated, etc. and then proceeded to add our families stuff into their space. :-) Thankfully, we all fit and it worked out just great!
Sue was prepared, as always, and had a delicious dinner prepped for the oven. Yum!!
We were camped just outside of West Yellowstone. And decided that since we had a free evening and there was a ton of ash in the air (from California wild fires), that we should head into town and see an IMAX movie about Yellowstone. The movie was quite informative about the history of the land and people.
The gift shop outside the theater was fun, we bought a few t-shirts (checked that off the list right off the bat!) and had fun looking at all the other crazy stuff for sale.
The sunset that night on our way back to camp was stunning due to all the ash in the air.
After a yummy breakfast we were ready to hit the park!
Levi (with just days to spare) got to take advantage of the National Park Service program that let's 4th graders into all National Parks for free!
Lots of good map learning and reading happened while we drove through the park.
This was our first glimpse of the geo-thermal features in the park. Little did we know how many we would see and how close we would get to them!
Blurp, blurp, blurp - that's what these mud pots sounded like.
One half of the crowd waiting to see Old Faithful
And there she goes - right on schedule!
Grand Prismatic
The array of colors (when you see it in person) is simply stunning.
You can't really tell, but this water was steaming it was so hot.
More mud pots, they just made us giggle after a bit because their sound was so silly.
This mama elk was mourning her calf that died earlier in the day. She was calling and calling for it. Thankfully, there were park rangers there to keep people at a distance from her and explain to us what her situation was. They said she would do that for several days.
The next day we visited Yellowstone Lake. It seemed cold, dark and mighty powerful.
The store next to the lake had fabulous architecture and I was glad we made the effort to check it out.
This decomposing bison in the river was just fascinating to look at.
And then finally we spotted some bison!
And more geo thermal features!
Hello, Mr. Bison!
Dragon's Mouth
This guy was making his way - never mind the clueless woman in front of us that he nearly headbutted off the path - across the meadow.
It was fascinating to watch and listen to this group of male bison.
He just kept on going,
off into the steam. Then we watched one more bison come and displace one that was rolling in a wallow. There was a clear pecking order that the bison understood and the humans were all fascinated by.
The land of the yellow stone...
This gigantic map of Yellowstone (that could be viewed from up high) was so helpful to me in figuring out the features and layout of the park.
Back at camp we enjoyed delicious food and yummy s'mores!
After a couple nights at the KAO campground, we moved to campground called Rainbow Point on the shore of Hebgen Lake. Despite all the signs...the campground manager assured us that no bears had been seen at the campground for a couple years........
Since moving campgrounds took a good chunk of the day, we filled up the afternoon by visiting the
Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone.
They rescue bears from Yellowstone that would have otherwise been put down, for a variety of reasons. It was kinda like a more naturalized zoo situation. In the photo below, the staff had hidden bits of food under rocks and the bears were roaming around sniffing things out and pawing the rocks away to get the food. It was fascinating to watch!
It was a warm afternoon so the boys were eager to go play in the lake! The only problem at our new campsite were the mosquitoes! We knew there would be a lot, so we had taken precautions and prepared clothing sprayed with Permethrin. That was a life saver!!
The boys had a blast in the lake!!
My boys actually got in fights about who would help grandma cook breakfast. Oddly, they never fight about helping me cook at home....?!
We took a drive up to a scenic look out of the lake and it was lovely to see the native plants and the long views we could get from up there.
Back to Yellowstone! I love the clouds in the photo below.
The Mammoth Hot Springs area was just crazy beautiful - and really hard to capture in photos!
The Lamar Valley was gorgeous. We saw herds of bison and it was just stunning!
More breakfast making! Funny how I only took pictures of food prep in the morning, never of dinner or lunch! Ha!!
The boys got some more time on the lake!
It was a fantastic way for them to burn energy since so much of our time was spent in the car driving to or through the park.
Tim and Sue had a big bug tent that we could all sit inside. So we ate our supper in the bug tent each night. Levi wore Tim's bug net thing on his head just to be super-safe. :-)
And then it was time for us to leave Yellowstone. We actually sat in the dark McDonald's parking lot in West Yellowstone and waited a couple minutes for them to open at 6 a.m. to grab breakfast. That was a first!
The early morning drive through the park as the sun was rising was stunning.
And we got a nice view of the Tetons on our way out, too!
Look how happy we are to spend an entire day in the car!!!
On our way through Nebraska we made sure to drive past Chimney Rock.
There was just one snafu on our way home. We accidentally threw one of Noah's hearing aids away in a gas station bathroom in Bridgeport, Nebraska. It's a long story....but we eventually got the hearing aid back after many phone calls and help from lots of kind people at the gas station in Bridgeport!
We spent our last night on vacation in North Platte, Nebraska and then headed back to Kansas!
We had such a great camping adventure with Tim and Sue and saw so many amazing things. The earth is very much alive and if you've ever questioned that, just go to Yellowstone and watch it bubble and spew hot sulfur water and you'll have so many more questions about science then you ever thought possible!
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