Yellowstone National Park (part 1)

We had been planning on going to Yellowstone for several months. Originally we were thinking that we could go over Labor day weekend, but we decided we should push it back and go over the fall break in October.We invited Laurel’s family to come with us and planned a route for our trip. As we got closer to leaving Laurel started feeling doubtful as to whether we should go or not. She had talked to a bunch of friends and had been told that Yellowstone is a dangerous place, not a place to take little kids, and that the park is closed by this time of year. Then Karen emailed to say that she has had a couple of bad dreams about what happens to us in Yellowstone mainly that something dreadful was going to happen to Kyle as he tries to save one of our kids. Laurel tried to talk us into postponing our trip, yet again, and go in the summer. So I stopped preparing to leave so that Kyle and I could talk about what we should do, and we decided that the house is such a mess that we could just stay home and clean it up.

Thursday morning (the day we had planned to leave) Laurel called all excited. She had called the Old Faithful visitor center and talked to a park ranger and asked him a whole bunch of questions which made her feel so much better, so she called us to see if we still wanted to go. Of course we still wanted to go, so she asked how much time we needed to get ready and we planned on getting the car loaded up and calling back on our way into town. I had our whole family packed and all the stuff loaded up in the car in an hour and a half! We decided to stop by wal mart on our way to the freeway to pick up some umbrella strollers and sandwich fixings and a few other odds and ends, I ran in, while Kyle went to fill the mega van’s tank. Then we stopped by Target real fast since wal mart didn’t have something that was on my list. I ran in, while Kyle went to sonic for happy hour drinks. I guess he thought I was going to take forever or something, but I ended up finishing super fast at target, and then I walked over to sonic and got back in the car there. Then we were on our way to Laurel’s house to meet up.

At Laurel’s house we sat and waited in the car, while Laurel finished preparing to leave. I made the kids sandwiches for dinner, since it was about 5pm by this time. We had all the kids make another potty stop and we made sure diapers were fresh, and when Laurel and her kids finally got in the car we were all ready to go. Laurel still needed to fill up so we stopped at the Costco gas in American Fork, which made me wonder why we didn’t just meet there. Kyle and I were JUST over there! Then we got on the freeway heading north. 🙂 We drove and drove and drove and we reached Pocatello, Idaho around 9pm or so. We stopped at a Taco bell to grab a snack and make a potty stop, and then we hit the road again. We drove to Rexburg, Idaho and there we stayed the night with some of Laurel’s friends, the Adams.

As we unloaded the sleeping bags and suitcases from the mega van there were lots of kitties running around and jumping in the van to check things out. Turns out the Adams have 12 cats, and a couple of big dogs. So Chewy got to sleep in the house overnight instead of being forced to curl up in someone’s car seat in the car. Ethan and Lars, were instant buddies with the 10 year old boy, Matthew, in the Adam’s family. It was pretty funny to watch them hover over Matthew’s shoulder to watch as he played a video game. We hung out for a little bit to let the kids get their wiggles out before we went to bed.

First thing Friday morning, Laurel took Alex and Sylvia and one or two of the Adam’s kids to the Rexburg Temple to do baptisms for the dead. I woke up and started packing up our stuff so that we could get out of there right after breakfast. As soon as one of my kiddos was awake I was getting them dressed and rolling up their sleeping bag (or folding up the playpen in Lydia’s case). Maija-Liisa Adams (the mom) made pancakes for breakfast. The pancakes (some of which were plain others had banana slices in them and others had chocolate chips in them) were served with applesauce, homemade maple syrup and whipped cream. After Laurel and the older kids got back, changed, had breakfast and finished packing up their stuff we headed out and hit the road again. Kyle commented on how remarkably FLAT Idaho is:

We drove towards West Yellowstone, Montana and we got to drive through the Targhee National Forest. I haven’t got to drive through a forest like that in about eleven years, and it was just BEAUTIFUL. Just to drive through those trees made me so happy. Once in West Yellowstone we drove around and found the hotel we were going to be spending the night at, and got our keys. Then we stopped at McDonalds for a potty break, and to pass out sandwiches (we did also get some fries to go with them 😛 ). Then to the Yellowstone National Park west entrance, we went. We drove east until we came to the dead end where we had to choose north or south and we went south. We pulled off the road and stopped as we saw things we thought we would like to get out and see. It was kind of nice going when the weather was so cool. Seeing the steam rise up off the ground was awesome.

From left to right: Lars, Daniel, Ethan, Jeremy

Dinah liked going down lots of stairs backwards.

As we worked our way south we saw this bison that was munching grass right by the side of the road:

At the Old Faithful visitor center we went inside for a potty break, and they had a short video about national parks and Yellowstone in particular so we watched that. Then as the video ended someone came over the microphone to announce that Old Faithful was active, and that was our cue to get outside!

Old Faithful!

After we watched Old Faithful blow, we decided that we had better work our way back out of the park before it got too dark. On our way back to the west entrance we saw a bunch of elk grazing by the river:

We got back to West Yellowstone, Montana and started looking for a place to have dinner. After going into a couple of places and finding seriously long waits we found a little bbq restaurant called Buckaroo Bills that looked TOO little to actually seat our large group of 13. But looks can be misleading, they were able to seat us right away in a section of the restaurant that is quite hidden from the front. The tables in the back had canvas over them to make them look like covered wagons, and our ‘wagon’ was decorated with things related to “Kissin’ Kate Barlow”. It was really rather cute. After looking at the menu for a bit and really not wanting to deal with a whole bunch of kids meals I spotted an option that included two rotisserie chickens 2 full racks of ribs, 6 corn bread muffins and a couple of other sides for a rather decent price. We decided to go for that! Then everyone could have a little bit of everything and there was plenty of food for everyone. A couple of people also wanted to try an elk burger and a bison burger, so we got one of each of those so those that wanted to try them could have a piece of each. The food was good, and soon we had all these little tummies full and they were ready to go to bed.

On our way back to our vans Laurel decided to stop off in some of the t-shirt shops. I did not realize this until I was already all the way back to our van and had all of our kids loaded up. Laurel had Alex and Lars with her so we piled Sylvia and Daniel into our van as well, so they wouldn’t freeze standing outside. Then we went to park closer to where the t-shirt shops were. When Laurel got back she asked where Sylvia and Daniel were, so we told her that we had them. After they all got loaded up into their van we headed over to the Three Bears Hotel, where we had reserved a room that had 3 queen size beds. We got everyone settled and got to sleep. We did have a couple kiddos fall of their beds in the night. Dinah just fell off onto the floor and after that we just got her set up on a comforter on the floor for the rest of the night. Jeremy also fell off his bed, but I think that was because Lars was being a bed hog:

He’s got close to half the bed over there!