Yellowstone Road Trip - Days 1 & 2

 Away we go!  Morning of Friday, July 31 we and tons of stuff got into the car and we headed northwest!  We took over 700 pictures and these are a few highlights.  Gloria said she was excited about being in Yellowstone but was nervous about the driving part. But this first day was actually pleasant, folders and games and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on audio. I got into the back and watched Home as I was the only one who hadn't seen it yet.

 West Texas has lots of wind turbines.
We stopped in Amarillo for fancy McD hamburgers and some time for the kids to run around.

Since it wasn't far out of the way, Caleb decided to take us by Cadillac Ranch. We got a great start on our license plate game as it seemed every car parked along the road was from another state.  I also didn't realize it was a painting thing, but another family handed us their left over spray paint so we added our marks as well.  

 Back on the road, Caleb saw a box turtle on the road, so the naturalist took a quick Uturn and we saved it! Finally, we made it to our hotel, La Quinta in Dalhart. Long day and we were still in Texas. But we enjoyed swimming before bed. Caleb said I would make a good hippie, I love the connections on the road: you're from Chicago going to El Paso, we're from Austin heading to Yellowstone :)

Day 2, we made it to New Mexico. Gloria looked out the window and said, that looks like a volcano. We stopped at a rest stop and found out that in fact, it was an extinct volcano! We also saw lots of pronghorns and prairie dogs.

The girls invented some of their own fun, like messing up their hair.  

 We had a lovely visit with Paula and family at their new home in Denver. They lived in Austin and are originally from Scotland.  It was great to stretch our legs and have a yummy cook out and catch up. The kids had fun cooling off in the water.

 Next leg-Caleb got in the back to watch The Lorax while I drove through Denver traffic.

 We made it to Wyoming and had a picnic at a nice rest stop with cool breezes and a view!
We spent the night at a LaQuinta in Casper. Morning showers, good breakfast and we were on the road again.

 On the other side of Cody, we went through three tunnels,

 And stopped at the Buffalo Bill dam and reservoir.

 Looking down the largest dam in America before Hoover was built.

 Almost there and a few miles out we allowed the girls to ask 'are we there yet' without Caleb replying 'I'll turn this car around...'...and because we have the Yellowstone Treasures book we knew these rock formations are called hoodoos and some are named.  We kept driving until we finally reach Yellowstone!

Yellowstone - We made it!

Sunday afternoon we arrived at the park and took the obligatory sign picture. The family there before us had a cute white fluffy dog, at the sign at Grand Teton a different family had a different white fluffy dog!

First stop, a picnic table for lunch and what an amazing place it was. We came in the East Entrance and this is a small lake called Elenor.

It was so great to be there and out of the car and the cool!  We took some silly pictures before heading to our campsite.

Bridge Bay campground, 450 sites all jammed into an area, but we had a nice upper loops with shade and only a short walk to lake view.  Gloria needed the facilities but several were closed for rechalking. We took a nice little walk and got to chat to several people on the way while Lydia and Caleb got our tent all set up~I didn't even plan missing out on the work.

I loved these huge dandelion puffs.  We got to tell the term dandelion to a German family. As we couldn't pick anything the girls would blow on them for the seeds to blow off and then play with them. They looked just like what Tinkerbell flew in on.

Once our site was set, we drove to the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center (VC), we enjoyed the stuffed birds, got our Jr Ranger books and discovered a nice area by the lake behind it.  It was warm and sunny so we put our feet in the black lava sand bottom lake.

some birding and sketching. I put both girls hair into a ponytail veil to keep it out of their face and not tangly for the week. Lydia's had one band pop that I had to replace but other than that lasted beautifully.  Gloria on the other hand, used a hood and is a wiggly sleeper. Nana asked if we brushed her hair at all during the trip and I answered No, that's what the 'do is supposed to prevent :)

There were issues getting sand off our feet (Oh Gloria) before going to the actual Fishing Bridge.

We worked on the Jr Ranger books before seeing a beaver or muskrat swimming in the water.

Ranger talk on the Yellowstone River and trout.

We walked across the bridge and saw some trout in the water.

I love the Lupins!

We drove to Lake area and to the Lodge, there was a fire in the lobby.  We stood in line at the cafeteria to get our food. I got Thanksgiving dinner.

We got the best seat in the house, the middle of the big bay window with an amazing view of the lake and meadow.

We sent Caleb out to take our picture and if you zoom you can see us :)

Back at the campsite, we needed sweaters.

The shared, open bear box was in our site. Most people just keep stuff in their cars, we stored random stuff like dirty clothes and fire wood and occasionally little children in it.
We turned in early for our early morning excitement to come.

Yellowstone - Day 4

We got an early start, left the campground at 5:47am, for our first full day in Yellowstone. We really hoped to see and hear wolves so we headed to Lamar Valley and had a lovely drive to get there.  Sunrise over the lake...

first sightings of hydrothermal features at Mud Volcano...

first of many bison...

sunrise on the Yellowstone River...

first up close bison...

first elk sighting in lupines...

and finally Lamar Valley.

There were tons of bison and we watched three coyotes playing, but no visible wolves.

We're awake!

We headed back towards the main road and stopped at Tower Falls. The girls thought Tower was the wide one, so unfortunately they weren't able to fully enjoy it due to the disappointment.  The path down was closed too, so we headed along to our next stop
.

Brink of Upper Falls. This one is wide and loud. The girls really enjoyed looking over and listening.

We decided we had time so we began the North Rim hike (hoping to make it to Inspiration Point).

Along the walk we saw Cascade Falls, with its spinning 'pizza' of foam, that the girls insisted I take a picture of, see if you can spot it above.

And made it to the Brink of Lower falls, which takes a lot of switch backs to get down and up.

Lots of handing the camera over and turning and smiling in front of waterfalls on this day.

We decided driving was a fine way to see the rest so we headed back to Brink of Upper Falls, where we had a nice picnic beside the car with our smashed bread.

We drove to Grand View and Look Out and loved seeing the ospery with nest and two fledglings.

Beautiful!

Gloria was playing with some pinecones and a little boy threw them over the edge so she wasn't in the mood to smile right now.

But she enjoyed sketching and getting compliments from the people who saw her.  The others of us enjoyed sitting in the shade while she worked on her art.

So since she was better we tried another family picture.  Lydia was very stoic today as her lips were really chapped and it hurt to smile.  I didn't think I would miss humidity but our noses were really dry too.

We stopped at Inspiration Point. We were not able to go all the way to the edge so the look out wasn't as inspirational as some other spots.

We needed a break so we took off our shoes and chatted with all who came by and complained about the name. We made fun of it too, but seriously look at that view, it was amazing.  We contemplated nature and enjoyed watching a violet green swallow.

We stopped at the VC and think this was our favorite.  We liked the map and globe marked with volcanoes that moved with water.

There was also a replica of Thomas Moran's famous oil painting which we read about in Yellowstone Moran (highly recommended).  We also watched the film but there was only subtitles no sound, so I had to read it to Gloria. Another mom fell asleep but it was nice to sit and learn.

After mailing postcards, we drove to the South Rim and Artist Point, where the colors of the canyon are beautiful.

One of our group would turn and smile for me :)

"There are a lot of people in Yellowstone right now."

We got to see the walk we took to see Brink of Lower Falls.

There was still time and a family at Inspiration Point highly recommended Uncle Tom's walk, which was a bunch of stairs down. It was fun to poll people on the way up-is it worth it?  We got varying answers.

But we made it down. There were dead mice at the bottom which was really disheartening for Gloria, but we made the trip up as well before it started raining on us.  The Canyon area was great and we saw so much and took time to enjoy each place.

Down the road is Mud Volcano. We stopped for a quick visit.  Caleb and Lydia walked around the whole area while I took Gloria to the bathroom.

The two of us stayed at the bottom and saw Dragon's Mouth Cavern first.  Gloria loved telling the others all about it when they circled back around to us.

Back at the campsite we had a fabulous evening. We had a wonderful visitor, a mule deer in velvet antlers.  The sight of this brought a family who were two sites away over and we began chatting and did so for a while before both us said said we were hungry.  We separated for dinner.

I don't think beef stew ever tasted so good, we were hungry and it was hot and delicious.

Then the Canadian family (originally from Maldova) joined us for our fire and s'mores.  It was great for the girls to have another person to play with and their daughter was happy to play with girls as she had two brothers. They enjoyed hearing about our lives as Texans and we listened to stories of winters in Canada. The deer got the name Mule Deer of Friendship.

A fabulous ending to a wonderful day. As soon as they left, both girls turned into pumpkins and went straight to bed.