Family Road Trip- Yellowstone National Park

Megan and Brain checked out of camp today, so we were on our own to explore. Our first stop was the midway geyser basin and the grand prismatic spring. The Grand Prismatic was amazing!! 

Even the steam was different colors.

We stopped for a picnic lunch before continuing on. We stopped at Gibbon Falls,

on our way to the Norris Geyser Basin. Again, the smell was a little too much for the boys.

The Steamboat Geyser is there. It is the world's tallest active geyser. It has frequent minor eruptions, but the large 300 ft plus eruptions are infrequent and unpredictable. The last major eruption was 2 years ago. We watched for a little while, but weren't lucky enough to see a large eruption.

We really wanted to see a bear, so we took a dirt road loop that we had heard someone had seen a bear on, but we didn't find any. We stopped to see the petrified tree, or what was left of it.

We continued on our way back toward our campsite and stopped at many overlooks with breathtaking views. 

As we were driving we saw a group of people pulled over, so we stopped to see what they were looking at. There was a baby bear in the bushes on the hill a little ways from us. It was so cute! I was a little worried where the momma was, so we didn't stay too long. 

We stopped at the Upper Falls too.

The boys climbed around for a bit on the rocks nearby.

We hit the road and got more up close and personal with one of the bison in the park. He decided to hog the road and we were stuck behind him for a while. 

We found another stinky hot spring for the boys called Dragon's Mouth Spring.

We were almost back to our campsite when we passed a huge meadow where there were people out with large cameras and binoculars. They were there yesterday on our way back too, so we stopped to try to figure out what they were looking at. We walked over to a group and they said there were a few wolves out. They were too far to see, but the couple that was there was so nice to let us use their equipment to see them. It was pretty cool. We had a really late dinner again by the time we got back to the campsite. We filled our day again with as much as we could, and we don't regret it one bit. 

Family Road Trip- Yellowstone National Park

We set out for the day to explore. We let Brian and Megan be our guides for the day since they have been here many times. Our first stop was Mammoth Hot Springs. We got there at lunchtime, so we found a nice shady spot to picnic. After lunch we walked toward the springs and found a heard of elk lounging near one of the buildings. There were even babies that were so cute!! 

The springs were pretty awesome. The step like shapes they had created were so unique.

  As we walked on the boardwalk the boys were playing follow the leader and Ethan was getting them to do all sorts of silly things. It was fun having the girls with us. Daisy made Rob's day when she held his hand most of the way. It started raining lightly as we walked to the car, and by the time we started driving to the next spot, it was pouring down and even got a slushy in some parts. Next we went to Tower Falls. Brian told us that last time he was here the trail was closed off that lead to the bottom of the waterfall, but we hoped for the best. We made it to the spot to view the falls, but the trail was closed off that lead closer to it. 

We continued on the other way that lead us to the river below.

 The guys decided we could walk along the river to find our way to the falls. It got a little hairy at times but we were determined to make it. The kids were such troopers!  

We finally made it...

 and then it started raining again. We were a little nervous, because as we were hiking we could tell that the reason the other trail had been closed is because there were landslides on that side of the hill. We got out of there as quick as we could. We got back on the trail and as we were almost to the parking lot we ran into Sean Struebing and his family from my home ward.  So funny that we would run into him in Yellowstone of all places. We saw a bunch of people looking to the side of the trail, which always means there's an animal and sure enough there was a deer with a two babies. They were adorable hopping around in the grass. We got on the road again and every time we would turn the corner there was another gorgeous view. 

We stopped at the visitor education center at Canyon Village. The kids loved the interactive features.

 We then went to Yellowstone's famous lower falls waterfall. It was incredible!! 

We got back to camp and had a late dinner. We tucked the kids in all together in the trailer again for a movie. They were so cute all snuggled up.

 We got another game in before bedtime. It was a great day. 

Family Road Trip- Yellowstone National Park

We left Butte this morning to head out to Yellowstone. 

We made it to the park by the afternoon and made a few stops in the park before going to our campsite. First we went to the lower geyser basin. It was so cool, but so stinky. 

The boys were unprepared for the sulfur smell. 

Next we stopped at Old Faithful. There were already a lot of people seated, so we figured it would be going off soon and quickly found a great spot to sit up front. We made some bets as to when it would go off and it helped the time pass quickly for the boys as we teased each other as their time passed. Dad and Lincoln won the bet and the geyser was just as impressive as I remembered. 

After Old Faithful went off, we walked over to the lodge and got some ice cream and checked out the place. It's over a hundred years old! 

We stopped at Kepler Cascades before checking into our campsite. 

We stayed in Grant Village and got a great spot right next to our friends, Megan and Brian, who got there shortly after us. The kids stared playing together and within seconds of playing tag, Bryson tripped on the asphalt and tore up his chin and both knees, poor kid! Luckily Megan came prepared with some craft projects for the kids and he quickly forgot about being hurt. 

He loved painting, and Lincoln made a cute pirate ship. We made some dinner and then got the kids settled in the Wood's trailer for a movie so the adults could play some games before bed. 

Family Road Trip- Glacier National Park

We got packed up this morning and went into glacier national park to drive the "road to the sun".  It's the most popular thing to do in glacier and it didn't disappoint. The drive was pretty incredible with the views only getting better as we went. 

We stopped at a few different spots as we went to explore a bit. We found some great spots by the river, 

stopped at one of the many waterfalls 

and found an ice cave on the way up. 

The boys had to write their names in the snow wall to join the others. 

The park had the coolest tour cars for people that didn't want to drive themselves.

 

After our adventures in Glacier we headed for Cut Bank, Montana. 

It's a super small town where Rob's mom grew up. We found her old Jr. High/High School. 

We walked around the building and noticed that it looked like someone was in the school. After knocking on every door, someone finally came. Rob explained why we were there and asked if we could look around. The nice lady agreed and showed us around a bit and took us to the gym area where they had pictures of every graduating class since they started the school. We found Uncle Ron and Aunt Sheila's pictures but Mona's was missing from her class photos. We were bummed, but still glad we had the chance to look around. 

We continued on and the drive was beautiful. I know why they call it "big sky Montana". The clouds and the sky were so pretty. 

We finally made it to Butte pretty late. The boys were happy to be in a hotel. We took the boys to the pool to get some wiggles out after a long drive and didn't get to bed until 10. The sun setting so late really throws us off, but we are making the most of it.