Yellowstone 2013

Well, our trip to Yellowstone was a good 3 weeks ago. But considering how many pictures I took, and the time it took to sort, edit, and upload them, I think it's lucky they're making it on here at all.

This trip was a bit different from the others we've been on. For one thing, it was just our little family this time. We also went a later in the year than usual, which made for way more obnoxious tourists, but also made for much more beautiful scenery. There was hardly any snow and I actually saw wildflowers! We had to adjust a lot of the normal routines to accommodate our kids. Considering we drove almost 1,200 (!!!) miles in a matter of four days, they did pretty well. (And by that, I mean they exploded in whines and crying during the last couple hours of our drive home.) The hardest thing about the whole trip was trying to find a good balance between doing Yellowstone the way Kevin is used to doing it (all wildlife searching, hardly any touristy stuff) and keeping the kids sufficiently entertained. I think we did pretty well and I also think it was good for Kevin to see a lot of the scenic stuff again through the eyes of his kids.

I debated about doing this in two posts, but what the heck - I might as well load it all into one, right?

Oh, and for the record - because this is the most important part to Kevin and it would be a travesty if I didn't put it down somewhere - we saw 18 bears, 4 bull elk, 3 wolves, a momma moose and her baby, and an assortment of foxes, coyotes, deer, big-horned sheep, mountain goats, and about a million buffalo.

One of our many pit stops the first day. It was windy!

Bull elk in the velvet. Makes you kinda want to walk up and rub his antlers, huh?

Pretty sure this was the first bear we saw. Maybe the second?

Another bear on Day 2. This one walked right past our car (with us safely inside, of course) so we got some great close-ups. Sadie was pretty excited to see this one.

Walking around Mammoth. It was windy again, obviously! 

The weather was entirely unpredictable the whole time we were there (which is normal), but we saw a lot more of these pretty blue skies than we normally do. 

Kevin - doing what Kevin does best in Yellowstone.

We ate most of our meals at picnic sites like this throughout the park. It's always risky depending on the aforementioned unpredictable weather, but this particular meal was pretty nice.

Walking around Norris Geyser Basin. This was the girls' first real experience with hot pots. Their verdict? "STINKY!!!"

Don't be fooled by the cuteness of this picture. I'm pretty sure 5 seconds after it was taken, Ellie had a meltdown and insisted on being carried the entire way back to the car.

Lower Falls. The girls got their own set of miniature binoculars as a souvenir and they LOVED them. They thought it was so cool that they could check things out just like daddy does.

:) Silly girls.

At another one of the waterfalls. Upper Falls, maybe? I can't keep them all straight!

Hi mom!

This little fox was wandering around one of our picnic sites. 

At the Mud Volcano hot pots. Seriously, Sadie walked around with her fingers pinching her nose almost the entire time. 

More bears! This dude was lounging by the river and we couldn't stop gawking at how HUGE he was. One of the biggest bears I've ever seen up close, that's for sure.

Kind of hard to tell, but this is a black momma bear and her two cinnamon-colored cubs. They were fun to watch.

See? Wildflower!

Sadie loved the wildflowers too.

Ellie and her BFF, "pups." 

Love these girls!

Coyote. One of Kevin's favorite forms of entertainment is laughing at people who convince themselves and any gullible believers around that these are wolves. :)

We saved Old Faithful for our last day. The weather was the most perfect I've ever seen it in Yellowstone, which also meant there were thousands of people waiting to watch Old Faithful erupt. No big deal, I'm just not used to it. It didn't disappoint, though. The girls thought it was awesome and that crystal-clear blue sky makes a gorgeous backdrop for the white water.

One of the funnest things we did was decide to rent bikes at Old Faithful and ride one of the nearby trails to see some hot pots. Sadie thought her little "train" bike was the most fun ever and she seriously laughed for the first five straight minutes. 

Ellie got to ride in a trailer behind Kevin and was totally content to hang out back there, enjoying the scenery.

One of our stops on the ride was the Morning Glory pool. Sadie was completely fascinated with it and all the colors. She was also very disturbed when we told her people sometimes throw garbage in there, which is why the colors aren't as pretty as they used to be. Just ask her - she'll tell you the whole story!

The bike ride was long enough that poor exhausted Ellie zonked in the trailer right before we got back to Old Faithful. I know how she felt - by the end, we were all seriously ready for a nap!