On to Mount Rushmore!

Woke up early and were wanting to leave the campground by 8. Finishing up the last packing when Hayden came riding up from the bathroom with, "A man fainted in the bathroom and the people down there need you!". Ah, the best laid plans. So, Tom went down, I figured a better bet than a girl doctor going in the men's bathroom. There was a man, unresponsive on the floor unable to be awakened by even a firm sternal rub. So, not much for Tom to do but make sure he was breathing and beating his heart and call 911. My hero! The lady who owned the campsite though, was much appreciative of having a doctor on the premises. We did leave about 15 minutes later than we thought and were glad for all the preparation we did the night before.

We drove through some lovely countryside and saw several herds of pronghorn antelope. Lots of ranches with horses which made Katie want to drive straight through to Peoria so she can see Cricket. We got into Mount Rushmore about 6 p.m. and the guy at our rv park told us to go straight to Mount Rushmore and eat at the cafeteria(cheapest and best food according to him) and then bop around until the night time ceremony. We did just that and the food was good and good size portions with adequate prices. The ceremony was nice and they honored the vets that were in the crowd which was a nice touch. Home late to bed(again). Appears that we will get home late Saturday night which will give us Sunday to unpack and recover a bit before I go to back to work on Monday. Tom, the state worker with more vacation days, will be back Wednesday and I have a whole list of things for him to do, including mandatory dental checks for a few of the children!

Whitewater Rafting!

Up late and breakfast. Tom went out a little early to scout out places for Hayden and him to go fishing this evening. We then did laundry at 2.75 cents per load and 75 cents for 10 minutes of dry. What a ripoff! At noon we went to our whitewater rafting place and went down the river for two hours. For those of you who knew our last experience, this was much better. First, it was sunny and warm, second the water was 62 degrees not 42 degrees and thirdly, we didn't get stranded on a rock with our guide going down the river without us. It was very windy and we had to paddle a large portion of the way so that we would even move. We saw 4 osprey and their respective nests and I forgot to tell you that we saw another bear cub(black) yesterday. Home to spaghetti and fruit. Tom and Hayden are going fishing and we are going to wander the town. Packing up and leaving tomorrow for the trip to Mt. Rushmore. No pictures today as I didn't buy the whitewater CD for $55. Sorry!

The Hiking Guidebook lied!

Ok, this post is late but we got home at 9:30 and I was too tired to work on it. Our day yesterday started out with breakfast and an hour drive to the Mt. Washburn trailhead. On the sign it said it was 3 miles to the top with 1500 feet of elevation gain. Not 2.5 miles and 1000 feet. We could see the lookout from where we were parked. If you look at the picture of the white van and up at the top of the mountain you will see the structure. It is 3 stories, so you know how far away it looked to us. But we moseyed on our quest to see Bighorn sheep.

About a mile and a half into the hike, a steady uphill climb all the way, we saw a herd of bighorn sheep. Four momma sheep and 3 babies. We walked with them, as they didn't seem to want to let us pass until we came to a midhike outlook area and then almost had a Planet Earth moment. A lady, a little over the hill(not in age but on the trail) said, "Look, a coyote!". We stopped dead still as it came across the meadow and it didn't even act like we were there. It was stalking one of the baby bighorn sheep. It walked inches in front of Kate and almost brushed Hayden's leg. The sheep got nervous and then bounded down the mountain to a rocky outcrop. The coyote then trotted up the path and we met it again higher and it circled down and around the other way to get at them, I suppose. After that, we didn't see the sheep anymore, so we were glad we got there when we did. No rams with the huge curly horns, which was a little disappointing but ok.

We walked to the top which is greater than 10,000 feet. It was a beautiful view. Austin summed it up by throwing his arms wide and saying, "Isn't this the greatest! It is so cool! I love today!" We spent about a 1/2 hour looking and eating some snacks and then started down. The alpine meadow flowers were fantastic and the downhill was much easier, although you had to be careful not to slip on the loose rock. It was a lungbuster as the elevation and the climb made you feel very out of shape but so worth it.

We came home and stopped by a fishing place because Hayden wanted to fish, changed into swimsuits and while he and Tom fished, we sat in the boiling river to get the soreness out. Then out for pizza which was a bad move as we were all so tired a grumpy and the restaurant was not so great. Should have just eaten in the camper. Went to bed and slept and slept. So, SUCCESS for today.

Mammoth hot springs, Boiling River, and horseback riding with a cowboy cookout

Started the day with big breakfast, packed a lunch and headed to Mammoth Springs because I wanted to see the lower half of what we saw when we took the big loop. It is amazing, stories and stories high of mineral deposits of the hot springs. We then went to Boiling River, which is where the mammoth hot springs meet the gardiner river after traveling underground for awhile. This allows you to wade in and pick your temperature from, "wow, my legs are boiling, I need to move, to AHHHH, hot tub, nice soak! We played(ok layed) there for about 2 hours and talked to various other people as they would come and go.

We then went up to the Mammoth hot springs area again and had a picnic lunch with elk grazing around the area and the usual stupid people trying to get as close as they can. My camera has a zoom lens and gets me a great shot without risk of injury! The rangers set up orange cones and sit in there cars telling people to get back. They also told Tom, "nice catch" when he ran all the way down the street to get a red bag that blew from our picnic. This was over the car intercom speaker. I suspect a citation would have been given had he not gone after it. It is $75,000 fine if you litter at Yellowstone. Thus, no litter anywhere. I always have said that we need to make punishments bigger for things and then people won't do it.

We arrived back at the campsite for a little r and r and I took a nap! What is vacation without at least one afternoon nap? We arrived at the check in for our horseback ride and went up a rode into Gallatin National Forest until it ended at our stable. We all mounted horses and took off up the mountain. Now, I am a decent rider and don't mind heights but this trail was a little narrow for me and after my horse slipped, I was even more vigilant. Austin thought it was more than he needed and we think his horse was scared of heights just like Autsin because it kept walking on the mountain above the trail and sliding down into the trail over and over. He was not pleased. Anyway, Katie got to finally trot on the way back which made her happy. We ended with a steak dinner cowboy cookout which I am not sure was worth the money but oh, well!

Home to get a few groceries and taking a page from Nana's vacation book, we are trying to get in ice cream as many times as possible. Tonight is mint chip and reeses pieces. MMMM! Early to bed as tomorrow we are climbing Mount Washburn. It is said that a herd of 20 bighorn sheep live a the top. It is listed in our hiking book as a lung buster. Hmmmm! 2.5 miles up and 1000 feet gain in elevation. At the top is a lookout and hopefully the sheep. Check in tomorrow to see if we made it.

A Day of Rest!

Got up not at the crack of dawn but when I wanted and got breakfast and packed to head to the northside. Gardiner, MT. Home of the original entrance of Yellowstone and the only one open all winter. We sank 2200 feet in elevation and although we are farther north we are hotter because we are lower.

Not much to talk about today as we went to the IMAX movie again about caves supposedly and really was about a lady who looks for extremophiles or bacteria that live in extreme environments. Not as cool. Then we wandered over to the "Authentic Mexican Restaurant", aka TEXMEX! but it was good. Drove north and saw the obligatory elk but no other wildlife. Came to our campground glad that the car had good brakes because the guardrails are few and far between. Rested awhile and decided to go see what the town had to offer. Browsed a few shops, found a pizza place with an interesting pizza called Border2Border, which is canadian bacon and jalapenos! We forwent that for the usual large veggie and large cheese. It was my rest day too, so I refused to cook. (I did do laundry, hard to skip that)

Back home to free putt putt golf and reading and posting. We have a cabin as well courtesy of Nanny which lets us spread out a little here which is very nice. Tomorrow is another big day. See ya then!

Grand Tetons! HO!

Oh, for the exuberance of Tom wanting to get to the Grand Teton's. "Can we leave by 8 a.m.?" Met by a few groans from the crowd that now desperately need a day off. But we agreed because we wanted to see the mountains and he had a trail all picked out. So at 7:30 a.m., I was trying to roll Katie out of bed to many a groan and pulling her covers up higher. Only the promise of a set of Pop-Tarts that Joy and Trei had left behind managed to get her out of bed. Everyone else got up and ready, breakfasted and in the car by 8:17.

We then drove back through Yellowstone and down to the Grand Teton National Park. We took only one wrong turn, probably a record so far this trip and stopped at the Pioneer Grill because it was now almost 11 and if he was going to have us hike 4 hours, he had to start with us full! We wandered the gift shop while the grill set up for lunch and then ate our fill. I had an unusual Taco Salad that had chipotle marinated lettuce with feta cheese, beans, corn salsa, tomatoes, chicken and salsa vinaigrette dressing. Tom had a salmon BLT and the salmon was delicious. Luke and I also ordered garlic butter and parmesan fries which I thought were delicious and he didn't like.

We drove from there to Taggert Lake trailhead in the heart of the Grand Tetons. It was the classic hike. Nice trail with rocks and roots to go over. Areas of serious gains in elevation(about 400 feet) and downhill. Babbling brooks, quaking aspen, a lake in the middle where we took a break and laid on warm rocks while we took a break. Then we walked the rest of the way back to the parking lot. 4.2 miles total and only took us 3 hours even with the break.

We headed back to the campsite with a storm starting to brew over the Tetons and stopped at a convenience store for some ice cream. After that we were driving and noticed a large crowd of people staring into the woods by the side of the road and knew that it was another wildlife siting. This one with a ranger trying to move people a long. It was a grizzly bear up in the woods. Yeah! Now we had seen both kinds of bears and from the safety of our car. I couldn't get a picture because the ranger wouldn't let us slow down much or stop.

We arrived back in town just in time to change clothes and go to church at Our Lady of the Pines. It is a beautiful mission church basically for tourists. After that, home for dinner and now to bed. We did convince Dad that tomorrow is a rest day and we will have to pack and go to the North entrance tomorrow anyway. So, Katie and I are sleeping in until we can't sleep anymore. It is pouring rain right now and we have been very lucky with the rain! Until tomorrow!

Shhhhh! Don't tell!

Not sure I can keep up at the pace we have set for ourselves. Very tired tonight. We started the day at 9 a.m. at the IMAX to watch the Yellowstone film. Had packed our camelbaks and lunch for a full day at the Old Faithful area. After the film, we spent our obligatory amount at their giftshop and moved on. We sat in the usual morning traffic due to elk alongside the road and finally made it to the Mid Geyser basin which has Grand Prismatic Spring which was supposed to be beautiful. We realized though as we wandered the boardwalk that the people we had talked to were correct and that you couldn't see it's colors because it was so big and you were not above it. We had also heard that you could take another trail and climb the mountain across from it giving you a lovely birds eye view. So, off we went.

We got to the trailhead from which you could do this(interestingly very easy to find and the one we had looked for the first day for our six mile hike! We hiked about a mile and then about 600 feet very straight up the mountain to get to the top. Not much of a path, just well worn from other foot prints. We were way winded at the top. But, the view was spectacular and the picture is from there. We then felt sorry for all the poor souls that didn't know what they were missing. We came back and ate lunch and watched the ravens eat all of someones box of single serving dorito bags one at a time because the idiots left all their food in the back of their truck including coolers of sandwiches. We were presently in a bear awareness area. DUH!

We went on to Old Faithful and hiked the entire Old Faithful Valley looking at all the different springs and geysers etc. We went to the famous Morning Glory Pool which was much smaller than Grand Prismatic but also is green now instead of blue because people keep throwing junk in it. Stupid people!

We had 6:45 dinner reservations at the famous Old Faithful Inn and had a little time on our hands. So, guess what? Luke found the piano and asked to play and serenaded the guests in Old Faithful Inn for an hour and a half. He was in withdrawal so that was good for him and good for the guests. Dinner was prime rib buffet and they charged us children prices for all the kids! Hooray. The roasted red pepper and smoked gouda cheese soup was fabulous. Then on to home and now off to bed.

Oh, what are we not telling? Katie informed me on the first day that 6 miles was way to long and so we told her we wouldn't do that again. Well, I hate to say that we are putting in at least that every day just as short hikes and although she was very tired today, she held up well.....shhhh!

A day of ups and downs!

I awoke this morning to the sound of puking! A lovely way to start any day in a camper. And of course it was our "canary of the mines", Hayden! We had planned to take kind of a day off after two long days which turned out to be a wise move with the present situation. I got up and did laundry which is better than I can do at home because my washer is broke again as most of you know. We then left Hayden and Tom(part of the fine print of the marriage contract) and went shopping in town. Souvenirs were bought and if you look closely, Katie is sporting a fox tail and up in front, so is Luke. Hmmm! Many comments then when we went hiking. Came back for lunch and Hayden had only puked 4 times(he informed me his record is 12) and he was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Tom doesn't believe in resting the belly or starting slow. which is why he gets to stay home with them.

After lunch, we went back to the Old Faithful area in search of Morning glory pool and prismatic spring pool. They are the ones always featured on the cover of National Geographic and such. We went through a couple of geyser basins but managed to miss the prismatic springs one. So, we pushed on for Old Faithful area and go ice cream and then found out that morning glory pool was 1.5 miles away and 1.5 miles back. Joy and Trei said, seen one, seen them all and we moved back to the campsite. We did manage to also see a bald eagle, 2 mama elk and their twins, and the rangers herding bison off the roadway with babies in the group as well. We also had friends texting about the bear killings in the campground near Yellowstone. Thanks, friends!

When I got home, Tom was chagrined to tell us that (no, Hayden hadn't puked again) but that a big wind blast went through and tore the awning and awning apparatus off our camper and onto the roof and tent area on the end. We quickly realized that 3 of the 4 holders were broken and took a knife and cut off the awning and threw it away. It also managed to poke a hole in one of the tent beds(TOM AND MINE!). I put duct tape on both sides which will probably hold longer than the life span of the rest of the tent. Anyway, we are good for now and I am hoping that my foresight into buying RV insurance will pay for a new awning and tent. (Don't tell them the awning was about shot anyway).

We ended the evening with bison steaks(mostly tough) but we are told very lean. Give me a little fat for some tenderness and I will hike it off, please. Hayden is back to normal and it is another lovely evening. I rode with Luke up to the IMAX theatre on our bikes to get the times. Luke thinks that all this exercise in altitude will be the equivalent of legal blood doping for two a days in football when he gets back. We may do Grand Teton tomorrow, we will see if everyone is well.

The Big Loop with Joy and Trei

We went on the longest day of Yellowstone with Joy and Trei today to hit all the "highlights" . It is called the Big Loop and is the road inside the park that circles the whole park. We started at 8:15 and ended at 9 pm. But we saw a lot. We took every major turnout that we could and looked at all the wonders. It is a contrast between green pasture and a bubbling fuming mud pot which is actually boiling mud. At one of the stops it looked about as thick as clay paste and then bubbled up and exploded sending mud up about 12 feet in the air. I posted lots of pictures.

We saw the one thing, I wanted to see the whole trip which was bears. We saw two cubs and then later saw a big one. This was from the car as opposed to the people who run up real close to see. We decided there is some Darwinian theory going on at Yellowstone which is survival of the smartest. One guy cornered a bison in the parking lot while talking on his cell phone and videotaping it. It did not look happy and I was afraid we were going to see a bison mauling which is something I didn't have on my list of must sees.

We took pictures at the "Grand Canyon" of Yellowstone which was high up and Katie said as the people were leaning over the rail..."This is high enough that when you fall that you will have plenty of time to realize how stupid you were before you die".

We saw elk, coyote, bison, deer and bear yesterday. We also got spotty cell phone service enough to text Keith who had also seen a bear. COOL! will put more up later tonight. Was too tired last night to get this done. Hayden woke up puking today which happened on a good day since we had planned some down time. We hope it was a bad burger.

First full day at Yellowstone!

Hayden first wanted to let everyone know that he saw the first spurt of water out of Old Faithful yesterday and announced to the crowd that it was starting. Now, onto today. We got up, had a big breakfast and having packed camelbak's with water and hiking snacks, set off for our six mile hike to Fairy Falls, Imperial Geyser, across the meadow, past Goose Lake and back to Fairy Falls trailhead. All total 6 miles. We are presently at 6800 feet of elevation which makes you feel a little out of shape.

We were a little perturbed after driving past where we thought the trail head was about 7 times that their is very little marking the hiking trails here. Anyway, we finally came to a different trailhead that would take us on a similar route and see everything but Geyser Basin which we could drive a lot closer to see anyway. We arrived after about 1/2 mile to Ojo Caliente caldera, which would be a geyser if it had a small hole underground that built up pressure and then shot through but is a caldera because it is a big pool of water that boils(seriously boils) and runs to (in this case) the river. The algae is different colors depending on the heat of the water. Blue at the hottest, then white, yellow, orange and brown. This can lead to multi colored pools, which are beautiful. The blue is as blue as the bluest sky. The entire area we walked had had a fire in 1988, so the trees were little(10 feet tall and all the same height). We strolled past goose lake and had to take our first snack break because everyone was HUNGRY! If you could had seriously seen what they put away for breakfast, you wouldn't have known, how they could be hungry.

Doctor sports medicine mom then got out bandaids because part of Luke's tennis show was wearing through the inside and leaving him a blister. He forgot to change to his hiking boots prior to hiking. A long but pretty hike to Fairy Falls(above) and then a short distance to Imperial Geyser. This half caldera, half geyser was way more impressive than Old Faithful. It continuously shot water 5-20 feet in the air and boiled away. It had all the colors in its pool which don't really show up on the picture. Next to it were boiling mud pots. Like calderas but truly mud. You could hear it from 10 feet away rumbling in the earth. Unearthly!

Off to hike the meadow which was Katie's undoing. We had now put in 4 miles and had two to go to get back to our car. The meadow was pretty with grasses and streams, also some bison bones but had no shade and was windy and sunny. We finally ran into another hiker and he told us we had about 1.5 miles to go and she didn't want to go anymore. She did finally buck up and get to hiking again but now with much grousing. Past the Ojo Caliente and then with 1/8 mile left to go, Austin allowed her a ride on his back. Good Big Brother! The next time she complains about them I will remind her. Probably a larger factor was that it was 3 p.m. and we hadn't had lunch, just hiking snacks. It took us about 3 hours and 45 minutes. We drove to Old Faithful and were going to have "lunch" and browse and the crowds made us just get ice cream and move on to our campsite.

A meal of hamburgers and we are eagerly awaiting Joy and Trei. Tomorrow is lower loop to look at the highlights. Pack a lunch, I think or it will cost us $100 bucks for lunch. Eight dollar sandwiches and 3.55 more if you want to add fries and a drink! WOW!

3 Bison, 2 deer, 1 Elk and a Geyser in Yellowstone to see!

From Thermopolis to Yellowstone today finally arriving at our destination. We actually get to stay in the same place until Sunday morning. We have never stayed in one place for so long and will enjoy spreading out and not worrying about packing up every night. We took a road up through Cody and at one point it said, "Pavement ends" and they weren't kidding. The WDOT road crew was working on the road and had it down to dirt. The scenery was spectacular and there were many exclamations of how wonderful it was from the kids. We then started driving through Yellowstone and couldn't believe it could get better but it did.

We decided to see who could spot the first wildlife big game animal and Katie says she "so won" because she saw a "BIG" bird and swears there was a "big animal" on the cliff. She had binoculars and the rest of us couldn't see it. Not that I don't believe her, but I won because I saw a bison. HAH! We could always tell when there was a wild game sighting for the traffic jam of people that were getting out of their cars and running closer. Forgetting that these are wild animals!

We stopped at Old Faithful figuring that we would probably want to see it more than once and got there 15 minutes before it went off again. It was spectacular although Tom had expectations that it would be bigger, so he was disappointed. We then drove on to our campsite and it is great. Our site is large and across from the cabin that Joy and Trei are going to sleep in when they meet us here.

It looks like spring here with all the wild flowers and I will try and post some tomorrow when we go on our hike. Well, time for bed. We have a big hike planned tomorrow of about 6 miles.

Honey, They shrunk the camper!!

Well, we found out after two days in the camper that it has mysteriously shrunk. It no longer holds our family with such comfort as it did 2 years ago. The center aisle is smaller and shoulders are rubbing, knees are in the way, the bed won't as easily share two kids. HMMM! So, today we drove to Thermopolis, home of the largest hot mineral springs in the world and tried to shrink the children. Katie was unimpressed and deemed it smelly. It had a sulfur odor, for sure. They had of course, commercialized it and it cost money to get in but we went ahead, calling on Nanny to bail us out again. The pools were at a cool 95 degrees and the hot tubs(the actual temperature of what comes out of the ground was 104 or hotter. The picture of the kids and I is in front of a mineral fountain. They started it in 1903 with a pipe coming out of the ground and let the mineral water build up around it, it is now as wide as you can see and 20 feet high. They keep adding pipe, I guess. The shrinking didn't work although Katie and I have the softest shiniest hair I have ever had. She doesn't think it was worth it though.

We then went to the dinosaur museum, as Thermopolis and the surrounding area have archeological digs that have unearthed some impressive fossils. They had life size replicas of dinosaurs to match any natural history museum. We then hit the gift shop at the end of the museum, (the usual, had to walk through it to get out) and bought our quota of souvenirs. Hayden found a street sign with Hayden drive on it and so he had to have that. We can never find anything with his name.

We are now packed like sardines in the Eagle RV park. It has the narrowest parking for RV's I have ever seen. Good thing we leave tomorrow and go to the next place which I hope will be more spread out. Had pork chops on the grill and new potatoes. Kids have ridden their bikes and we are beginning to think about bed.

On to Yellowstone!

Drivin', Drivin', Drivin', then we kept on driving; Yeehaw!!

Well, the first day was a successful long driving day! We drove about 12 hours. Nebraska is a boring, boring state. Although Nanny couldn't go with us, she sent a little money and we had ice cream on her today. Thanks, Nanny! We went to church in Wheatland, Wyoming and then had called ahead to a campsite in Casper, WY. This was supposed to get us in at about 7:30 p.m.(now mountain time). As we drove though, we say a sign for the Oregon Trail Ruts Historic Site. This is the place where so many pioneers crossed over the same path that it dug ruts in the sandstone. The last picture is the kids and Tom standing in the path with the undisturbed sandstone on either side. It was really impressive. This took us out of our way about an hour, which would have been ok, had we not driven so far already. We got to our campsite about 9:15 and quickly set up and went straight to bed. We are on VACATION!! WOOHOO!