This summer we decided to take a trip to Yellowstone National Park. We had a lot of fun. Thank you mom for letting us use your van. I don't know how we would have done it in our little car. Don't ask Andrew about the trip, he will tell you it was boring. He says he can wait to go back until he is 15. Kiana really loved it. She kept asking if we were in "allowstone". She even still today asks if we are going to "allowstone". She also has seen way too much Dora the Explorer, because everywhere we went in Yellowstone, she had to save the baby jaguar. She was a good little camper. She helped Kevin, Andrew and I set up the tent, and she walked on her own most of the time. Jared liked it more than Andrew, but not as much as Kiana. We did not see much wildlife other than bison and elk, but we did see the back of one Grizzly bear and a mother black bear and her two cubs. The grass was too long to get a good picture, but I got what I could. The moose is just a statue that we found outside of the park.
On the way up, we stopped in Idaho Falls for gas and lunch and to stretch out the legs and go potty. Jared stepped on goose or duck poop twice while we were at the falls. They had fun watching how fast the water moves there.
When we finally reached Yellowstone, there were no available campsites inside the park, so we had to drive down the road a bit and find one at Hebgen Lake. So we set up camp the first night in Rainbow Point campground, roasted hot dogs and then we roasted apples and had S'mores. The kids had fun roasting their apples, but not so much fun eating them. The S'mores however were a hit. We got a tip from a friend that we thought we would try, instead of using graham cracker, chocolate and marshmallows, we just used fudge striped cookies and marshmallows. They turned out great.
In the morning we broke camp and headed to the park. First thing we did was find a campsite and set up camp again. We lost about a half a day breaking and re-setting camp, so we decided to stay an extra day. We wanted to take the boys swimming at a swimming hole in the park that Kevin's boss told us about, but due to high, swift water, it was closed. Kevin was very disappointed.
We went to Old Faithful everyone but Andrew enjoyed this (so he claims). We also went to the Artist's Paint Pots which was Andrew's favorite. The boiling mud made a really cool sound and was almost as mesmerizing to watch as a fire.
The Dragon's Mouth had the worst sulfur smell of everywhere in the park. It was horrid. We wanted to puke, but were able to hold it in.
Kevin nor I had been to Yellowstone in over 15 years, so it was nice to go. All in all I think everyone had a good time. Andrew also earned his Traveler for Webelos on this trip, so that was good.
The only bad thing that happened was that it rained the first day we were in park. It came down hard and even hailed for a short time. It got Jared's sleeping bag wet so we had to make different sleeping arrangements and we had to go to McDonald's for dinner. That night it got down to freezing. This is the kind of thing memories are made of.
