Day 6 - Yellowstone

Rejuvenated by the fact that we were finally going to be in the same place two nights (even at a questionable site), we hit the ground running. The forecast was calling for rain, rain and more rain. It was COLD! I had checked all the weather reports, so I was expecting the highs and lows but for some reason, it just seemed colder. I have to say that day, we didn't wear enough layers. Thankfully, it rained all the way on the drive and then it rained all the way back to the campsite. For the most part, we were dry the whole day. It was definitely something to add to our "blessings" list. We got to the park a bit later than I had hoped. Some of the time / mileage charts can be misleading. It really was 20 minutes to the entrance to the park - but then another 40 to park and explore.

It was May, I just didn't expect there to be as much snow as there was. My little guy fussed the whole way up the mountain that I didn't bring his snow suit!

Because it took longer than we expected to get to our destination, of course we had to make a pit stop. My boys wasted no time in taking an opportunity to pelt one another with snowballs. The bathrooms were interesting, a combination porta potty meets squatty potty. Either way, they were disgusting and made me very thankful, on more than one occasion, that my little guy was a fellow. I had decided that rather than coming all the way back to the RV for lunch, that would be the meal we would eat out. I already had supper going in the crock pot, so one meal out would be ok. I had looked online to see our eating options. We decided we would go to a grill/cafe. I learned a lot that day. The first thing I learned was that the Asian population visit Yellowstone more than any other people group. We went into the grill and of course it was crowded and of course we had a million people with us. One man so sweetly motioned for us to sit with him (as he was eating his hamburger with chopsticks) and I would have loved to but he was at a table for four and there were 8 of us.... The other thing I noticed was that on several of the tables - there were boxes. They were the size of a box you would get at say Sam's Club to pack your groceries in. As we were wandering around looking for a table, we saw a lady pass us and she was carrying a box. It was FULL of french fries! Some ladies motioned to me to let me know they were getting up. There were three ladies sitting there and they had one of the boxes. Sure enough, there were about ten fries left in the box. We laughed about it almost the whole day. We have never seen fries sold by the box. After lunch, we headed over to Old Faithful. We had about 30 minutes before it was scheduled to erupt. We took a walk around the perimeter. We saw huge amount of bison patties but not one bison. I was very disappointed. I didn't want to get up close and personal with one, but I did want to at least see one.

This is one of the pits around Old Faithful. You could smell the sulfur. We were hoping to find a hot spring to take a dip in but we just didn't make it. It really does take a long time to do the parks, I underestimated how much. It would have been another hour to drive were there may or may not have been an accessible spring. It came with tons and tons of health warnings too. The girls were already more than a little skeptical.

After circling the perimeter, we settled in to wait. We had a great, front-row view.

My poor little fellow didn't make it to see the eruption. Owen ended up carrying him halfway around the park. When he woke up he said, "did I miss it?" Poor fellow. Luckily for him, Ryan recorded the whole thing so he could watch it over and over and he did! One day, I'm going to make a collage of all the places this guy has slept.

Because we had limited time, I had scoped out online beforehand the "must see" things of each park. After seeing Old Faithful erupt, we decided to head to the Morning Glory Pool. It's a long walk! I had no idea that the "trails" of yellowstone would be a wooden-like pier and/or concrete. I didn't know it would be stroller friendly. I brought a stroller, it was just in the car. We were semi-rushing because we wanted to see it but we had other things we wanted to see too.

About the time this guy was crossing our path (the only real, live animal we saw up close and personal - we saw a few bear cubs from the road.) we were questioning our decision to walk to the Morning Glory Pool. In the end, Ryan and Little Man were tired so they decided to head to the ice cream shop and wait for us there. The rest of us kept on booking, in search of a Morning Glory.

Although the path was longer than expected, we saw some pretty cool sights along the way.

We finally made it. I'm not sure we all agreed if it was worth it or not. I mean, it was pretty but we passed a couple on the way that should have been named "Morning Glory Jr." We stopped, we looked and then we hoofed it back to the road. We took a less scenic, more direct route this time. We made it back to the ice cream shop just in time. After looking around the gift shop a little we decided we were not going to keep venturing further into Yellowstone. We unanimously decided to give up our quest of finding a hot spring and head back to the RV. Thankfully, no bear had smelled our delicious supper, it was waiting for us upon our return. We had a great evening hanging out and watching Alexa and Ian do disgusting things playing the dumbest game ever, 1-10.

So long, Yellowstone. Until next time...