Yellowstone

Tim and I couldn't decide if we were going to fly to Yellowstone or drive.  The logical decision would be to fly but we ended up driving.  I'm so glad we did because we were able to see more than Yellowstone on our trip there and back.

We headed to Carla's house in Cedar City, Utah two days before we had to check into our cabin in Yellowstone, Wyoming.  I took all the kids to the park for a picnic lunch and then to the water park for some afternoon fun.  It was nice to be outside on such a beautiful day, let the kids play, and allow Carla time to do some last minute packing.

The cabin had plenty of space for all five families to have their own room plus extra beds for the kids to sleep .  The three girls, Madison, Kailey, and Riley had a slumber party every night in Autumns room.  The six older boys stayed in the "boys den" together where they talked all night until they fell asleep one by one. The kids used the downstairs den to play the Wii and watch movies and the adults played games and ate goodies in the upstairs living room.  Lots of places for hid-n-seek and tons of space for running around playing tag.

 

The girls.....

 The boys.....

 Almost a dozen. :o)

The first day we were there it was Father's Day.  We went on a family walk after breakfast and the kids read the markers on the trail as we went along.  At the end of the trail there was a bridge where you could feed the birds and we were excited to see an otter swimming in the water.  Our first encounter with Yellowstone wildlife! We had a picnic lunch and toured a man made cabin built by John Sack.  We watched a special Father's Day video and had a sweet tribute to all the Fathers.

On the hike Tim saw sap running out of a tree and told Bryant that you could start a fire using sap.  As soon as the tribute was over, Bryant was outside at the cabin's fire pit learning how to start a fire with sap and  sharpening an old stick he found to make a spear for fishing.  His goal was to fish everyday on the trip.  He didn't go everyday, but he went a lot.

Our cabin was  a half hour drive to the West Entrance of Yellowstone park so we had to plan accordingly each day we went into the park.  We wanted to get into the park and leave the park before everyone else to avoid traffic.  The first area we came to was called "Madison" River.  I had to get a picture of Madi next to the sign.  Super cute!

 After the river, we headed to see the mud pools, hot springs, geysers, and Old Faithful.  On our drive we saw a heard of Bison with their baby calves and shedding their winter coats.  We couldn't believe it.  Wildlife that wasn't behind a fence........just out in the wild and we could get out of our car to see and take pictures near them. Amazing!

The mud pools and hot springs smelled like rotten eggs and very interesting to see.  It was so windy this day you felt like it was going to pick you up and take you away.

 Old Faithful was estimated to erupt at certain times during the day.  It was fun walking through the visitors center and waiting for our time to go out and see it.  Even though it wasn't a "Huge" eruption, it was still very unique and exciting to see something that doesn't happen except when you're in Yellowstone National Park.

Autumn made Yellowstone shirts for everyone before the family trip.  We decided to wear our shirts into the park on the first day for our group picture.

  

 If you look at Porters face you'll see how windy it was that day.  He loved the wind so much he growled into it as it blew in his face.  It made all the kids laugh.........perfect timing.

The next day, the rest of the group headed to the North Entrance of the park to experience white water rafting.  We chose to stay behind and take a nice family stroll down Big Springs River right by the cabin.  

We thought it was going to be a nice stroll down the river, but we quickly found out that Tim and Mclain had to paddle the entire time to keep the raft moving down stream.  This was not easy at all with the constant shift of wind and current.  Some parts of the river were so shallow we found ourselves stuck to the bottom of the river a few times.  

The raft had holes in the base which allowed water to creep in and out of the raft.  Since the weather was extremely cold, especially when the sun went behind the clouds, we did everything we could to keep dry.

We brought lunch to eat on the raft, but we didn't dare make any extra movement for fear of getting wet and freezing to death. LOL!!!  As soon as we couldn't stand being in the raft one minute longer, we came around a bend and saw three Moose come out of the trees to eat the grass in the river.  It made the whole rafting trip worth it.  The bend in the river lead to the end of the trip and we could not have paddled any faster to get to shore.  

The next day, the guys got up really early in the morning to rent boats and fish.  While the guys were fishing, the girls took the kids to Bear Museum, a small zoo near the West Entrance to the park.  

The next day, we headed back into the park to see the Upper and Lower Falls.  Each day we hoped to see something different, and we always did.  We saw a Bald Eagle, Grizzly Bear, Big Horn Sheep, and experienced sharing the road with Bison.

For our last day at the cabin we decided we wanted to go back into the park one more time to see Yellowstone Lake and show Madison how to fish, give Bryant another chance to fish, and try and see more wildlife.  We left the cabin at 7am in hopes to see early morning wildlife.  We did!  We saw Pelicans twice and a huge Bull Elk.  The last trip into the park was exactly what we hoped...........one last chance to see different wildlife and another opportunity to see a little more of the park.  We ended up seeing about 75% of the park.  It was a great trip and I would go back in a heart beat.

We bought a National Park Passport book and since we were going back into the park one more time, we decided we had to get our first National Park stamp in our Passport book.  I was so excited about our first stamp, I ran back to the car to tell Tim, and he caught my enthusiasm on camera. 

 As soon as we got back from our last day in the park, it was our turn to ride the quads we had split with Hilton, Scott, and Jen.  This was so much fun!  As you can see, Tim and Bryant rode the two seater quad, and Mclain, myself, and Madi rode in the four seater quad.  After we got off road a bit we let Mclain and Bryant drive.  What a blast!

As soon as we got on the dirt road, Tim and Bryant got stuck in the mud.  We were fortunate to have a friendly quad-er help pull us out.  Bryant told me that he wanted to splash in the mud on the way back and get all dirty.  His wish came true on the ride home.