We Could Have Been Eaten By a Bear...

...but we weren't. And that's good.

We made one more trip for the season to The Tetons and Yellowstone. I know what you're thinking, "What? You went there again? Don't you get tired of doing the same thing so many times?"

The answer is yes and no.

Yes, we went there again. No, we aren't doing the same thing again. There were several things that we did that we haven't done before or don't do very often:

1. We went on a few hikes that we had never been to before.
2. We got to spend quality time with Dan, Abby and their cute girls.
3. We got to hang out with Derek and Laura and family for part of the time. (Okay, we do that a lot, but we always enjoy it.)
4. We hiked with Trent and Caroline. (Which we don't do very often and we enoy it.)
5. Rachel drove in the National Parks, and did a really good job doing it.
6. Brad, Dan and the kids went for a nighttime hike to Huckleberry Hotspring and had a soak in the light of the full moon and the company of a bullfrog. I had a nice quiet time in the cabin by my own self.
7. The girls and I drove home and left Brad and Caleb there (they came home with Wood and Derek).
8. Rachel, Emma and Caleb went on their first 11 mile hike up into the Tetons.

Instead of just hiking to the lakes we usually sample, Brad found some places that we had never been to before. Here we are at the Lower Schwabacher Landing of the Snake River. It was a thoroughly pleasant walk by and through the Snake River. We even got to see a snake swimming in the Snake River. Huh, we've never seen that before.

We got to hike to Emma Matilda Lake with Trent and Caroline, Wood and Dan and Abby (and all kidlets that are usually connected to Dan or Abby).

Heh, it looks like Kate is putting something on top of that pine tree.

(Not the actual bear we encountered. This photo was taken with a telephoto lens from the safety of the car.)

We hiked to Phelps Lake with the intention of swimming and jumping off a boulder into the cold water. Instead, we got cloudy, windy weather and a bear that followed us along part of the trail. It was minding its own business, just rooting around rotten logs for tasty grubs. But we Millers have a deep respect for nature and anything that might possibly rip one to shreds so let's just say having a bear saunter within 10 yard of us made us uneasy. At one point we climbed up on the boulder we would have used to jump into the lake and just watched it. Kate and Lucy were scared of the bear until I named it StrawBEARY Shortcake. While we were on the boulder, we broke out our lunch of sushi and turkey sandwiches.

In retrospect, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.

But we made it out unscathed and knowing we now have a cool story to tell about a bear encounter.

We went swimming/wading in Moose Falls in Yellowstone. Lucy and I had an adventure where we were stuck out in the middle of the river because I was too wimpy to get my clothes wet.

We sat out on rocks and pondered nothing in particular.

At one point, Dan and Abby headed back to California and Wood, Susan and we hiked along the Howard Eaton Trail that follows the Yellowstone River. The adults thought it was a beautiful hike but Rach, Em and Cabes thought it was boring.

It was only because the day before, we hiked to Lake of the Crags, which is just a smidge more challenging.

But I'll save the descriptions of that hike for another day.

I love it up here.