Sunday, October 2, 2011

Yellowstone Day 3

Our last day in Yellowstone started of rainy and cold. We walked to the lobby in the hotel for breakfast and watched out the window at the pouring rain. Not really our idea weather for walking around outside. We checked out of the hotel and headed to go see Old Faithful. One the drive to Old Faithful we kept seeing steam off in the distance. We finally drove up to a huge gyser bed. We got out the umbrellas and strapped the puppy backpack on Morgie and set off.
Despite the rain the kids loved walking around a looking at the hot pots and gysers.

We could stand fairly close to the one and if you weren't paying attention you would get wet with all the overspray from the gyser.
We headed off the Olf Faithful and we just missed the big gyser by a few minutes so we had about an hour and a half to look around. Morgie took the oportunity to fall asleep on me and was not about to be woken up. So Mason and daddy walked around and looked at all of the smaller gysers and enjoyed time together. I took Morgie to the lodge so she could sleep while we waited to Old Faithful to spew. Daddy and Mase came back and found up and when Morgie woke up we ate lunch from the deli which was out of almost everything since that was the last weekend Yellowstone was open to the public for the season.


Old Faithful was about 6 minutes early so we were glad we decided to chance the rain and go down there early. The kids thought was was neat and stood by the edge to watch. I remember Old Faithful being a lot bigger but maybe I was a lot smaller the last time I saw it.
On the way home with had to sop in a huge field to take some pictures since the leaves were so pretty. We set up the tripod and took a few shots. Mason wasn't interested in taking pictures at this point but it turned out pretty good otherwise.
Then the kids started to explore the field. This is usually how it works - Mason is the leader and Morgie follows and they both end up in trouble :-)


One the way back home we were driving through Jackson and there were a ton of cars pulled off the side of the road so of course we had to as well. Shane figured there were animals and we pulled off the road and got out and there were 3 moose. There were tons of people taking pictures of them and getting way too close in my opinion. Morgie and I stayed by the car where it was safe and Mase and dad went to get a closer look a take a picture. They didn't get too close since a cop showed up to make people move back. After that we headed home. Mason kept saying that he wants to go back to Yellowstone to go hunting and camping. Maybe next year minus the hinting of course. We had a great time and I'm sure we'll do it again in the near future.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Yellowstone Day 2

Day 2 of our Yellowstone trip started out earlier than either Morgie or I would have liked. The boys are early risers but Morgie likes to sleep in a little bit with her mommy. So after getting ready, eating breakfast and checking out of the hotel we headed down the road to Yellowstone. The day started off really cold. I can't believe the temp difference between home and Jackson.
We had to stop and get a family picture in front of Grand Teton. It was hard to get a good picture. We had to time it just right for the camera timer, the kids looking and no cars driving on the road behind us, but we finally got one.
The boys had to take a pit stop. Shane hates when I take these pictures but I think it is funny :)
We headed into Yellowstone and we stopped at the hot pots by Yellowstone Lake. The water in the pools were so pretty! I always loved the different colors.

Morgie and mommy in front of Yellowstone lake.


On the way back to the car Mason saw a coyote. I just thought it was someones dog but daddy confirmed it to be a coyote . He wasn't afraid of people at all so while I was in the nasty outhouse daddy took the kids up close and fed it some jerky.
We were unaware that this was the last weekend Yellowstone was open for the season and we were having a hard time finding some place to get lunch so in our search we drove right past several buffalo that were sitting right next to some cabins. The kids loved seeing them up close.
Here is Morgie trying to pick up rocks in the pavement. Her favorite thing lately is collecting rocks to bring home.
We stopped off at Yellowstone falls - I think this was on the way to the smaller falls. This is about the best picture we could get cause Morgie was really tired and didn't want to take any pictures. We headed back to the car and the kids immediately fell asleep!




After the last stop we packed up in the car and headed to the hotel in West Yellowstone just barely in Montana. We settled in the hotel and walked a few blocks to a mexican restraunt for dinner. Then we headed back to the hotel to go swimming. The kids love to go swimming at hotels - mostly just in the hot baths as they call them (hot tubs).