Yellowstone

Alright, finally, my post about Yellowstone National Park. We went up a month ago for Ben's family reunion. We stayed in West Yellowstone, in these cute little cabins. We had zero dollars, so Ben's mom and stepdad graciously shared their cabin with us.

The day we all arrived, we just kind of hung out in West Yellowstone and looked around. I wanted to go to an Imax movie at the Grizzly Discovery Center, but no one else really felt like it. I should have just gone by myself, because we never got a chance to go. :( This is a family friend, Morgan, pretending to smoke - another family friend bought all the teenaged girls pretend cigarettes, so that they could freak their parents out. It was pretty funny:

The first full day in the park, we took a few quick pictures at Banner Falls. The picture at the heading of my blog right now is at Banner Falls, and here is another one that actually shows the falls:

We then planned to stop at Artist's Paintpots, but it was closed. Bummer. We were supposed to meet Ben's dad and sister there, but apparently Artist's Painpots aren't the only paintpots in Yellowstone, so they had gone to the other paintpots. And no one had reception in the park to call each other. So that kind of threw everything off, as far as hanging out in the park with Ben's dad and sister, because they went to different stuff the first day, so the second day, they didn't want to do the same stuff again. Does that make sense? It's hard to keep 45 people together when you're driving through Yellowstone. It got frustrating at times. I felt bad.


Then we went to the Norris area, and I'm not sure I've ever been there before, that I can remember. They just have a big old Geyser basin, with hot pots, steam vents, geysers, hot springs, etc.:

My children found it very boring. I found it very hot. :) And I found my children very annoying. Micah hated the whole Yellowstone experience. I ended up illegally holding him in the front seat with me for basically the whole trip. 'Cause I'm a bad mom. Sorry; I can't stand to hear him screaming non-stop.

Then, to finish the day off, we did the coolest thing ever - the Boiling River in the Mammoth area:

Mom says our family went to this years ago, but I can't remember it. It's where a hot springs and a cold river meet, creating a natural hot tub of sorts. So much fun. As an homage to Lexi, I kept yelling, "Boiling River 2008!" over and over again. Holla, Lex. :)

The next day, we stopped at Firehole Falls. We really should have gotten out to swim there. There is this crazy part where the rapids suck you under a watery cave and then spit you out the other side. You seriously feel like you are going to die. Very freaky. The teenagers would have loved it. This was my kids' favorite spot ever, because there were these chipmunks there that would come right up to you and get food out of your hand:

I know it's bad of us, but they were so flippin' cute! They were taking all the food to a little storage area down the cliff, and then coming back for more. They would actually jump up and down. My kids could have stayed there all day long.



Then my lovely camera battery died, so no more pictures. Sigh. Sad. We went to Old Faithful, which was spectacular, as always. When it went off, we were sitting by some teenagers on a youth group outing or something, and one of them goes, "Is that as tall as it gets? It's not very tall..." I just wanted to turn to her and say, "Um, dude, it's NINETY FEET TALL!! That's huge! And incredible!" The little punk.

Then we drove through the Canyon area and got to see all the bison that hang out there. That was fun. I'm still really upset about my lack of a camera...



We wanted to get a big group shot in the canyon area, but there were too many cars, and everyone was grumpy, and we had to head back to West Yellowstone to prepare to go to a play...





At the Playmill Theater!

My favorite. They have the cutest plays there; they always do a really great job. We watched Hello, Dolly, which was fantastic - I've never seen that play, ever, so it was a lot of fun. The best part of it was that Ben's dad and stepmom offered to watch the kidlets while we went. Oh my gosh, it was so fun not having the kids there, to just enjoy the play as adults. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Tim and Brenda!



And thanks, Greg and Gloria, for letting us stay with you in that cabin!



I'd like to go into the park again, just me and Ben, and really spend some good time sightseeing there. There is so much to see, and so much that we missed. Next time...

Here's a slideshow: