Two Trips for the Price of One

On July 23, we headed out for another Yellowstone trip. I have to admit that I didn't have a great attitude going in to the trip. I knew that I was going to have a fun time once we got there but on the 27, we were going to drop Rachel off in Rexburg for an outdoor adventure camp. This meant that I would have to pack for our four day family trip AND Rachel's five day camp in one shot. I was stressed that I would forget something that was crucial for Rachel and then she would have to sleep out in a tent for five days while missing something important like a sleeping pad or CLEAN UNDERWEAR. Brad assured me that it was going to be okay but the thought of doing laundry in a laundromat in a National Park is not something that I had been looking forward to my entire life. Don't worry folks, I bucked up and pressed on with a smile without any attitude.

Thursday morning, we headed out to Yellowstone. We arrived in the late afternoon and Brad was guessing as to where his parents and brother might be. We drove into several turnouts and we found Derek, Laura, and kids near the Grand Prismatic Spring. We said our hellos, and they headed back to Old Faithful Lodge. We stayed behind and found a cool viewpoint of the spring. (After driving for six hours, we desperately needed to stretch our legs.)

We had never seen it from this point of view before, you can see the boardwalk directly behind the spring. I'm really glad we went up on that hill.

What is it about being out in the open that compels boys to throw rocks?

After our short hike, we went back to Old Faithful Inn and met up with everybody to have dinner at the Lodge. We love staying at the Inn, the little rooms are so rustic. I realized that all the years we have stayed there, I don't think I have ever taken a picture of it.
Cute, huh? Rachel and Emma's favorite feature about the room is the bathrobes.

In the morning after breakfast, we took the long drive to Mammoth and had lunch at the Grill there. For some strange reason we didn't see very much wildlife on this trip. Usually we see huge herds of buffalo and elk but we only saw a few here and there. Global warming? Ill-conceived government conspiracy? The world will never know.

After lunch, we separated ways and Wood, Susan and Ellie went to sample lakes that were short hikes and the rest of us went on a 6 mile hike to Hellroaring Creek and the Garnet Trail Loop.

There is a suspension bridge over the creek that is pretty fun to walk over.
Hellroaring Creek. One of the coolest names for running water ever.

After we walked on the bridge, we turned around and joined up with the Garnet Loop Trail. The walk along the Yellowstone River was beautiful.

The terrain was varied, with steep hills, flat walks across sagebrush and praries. How appropriate that we went on this hike on Pioneer Day. Rachel and Hunter were singing pioneer songs.

We were really stretched out over the hike with Emma and Brad pulling up the rear because Emma was tired. Earlier that week, Emma had her physical that is required to enter 7th grade. The doctor noticed that her blood pressure was unusally low. He asked her if she felt listless or tired often. She told him she felt fine and they moved on to the next question. After we came home, I thought about it and I felt like she was tired all the time. I talked to her about it and we decided that we were going to talk to the doctor as soon as we got home. (She is just fine, by the way). The reason I bring this up is because when we told her how long the hike was going to be she exclaimed, "Mom, I can't hike for six miles. I have low blood pressure!" So she's going to use that now, huh? I got a good laugh over that one.
We didn't see another human soul the whole hike. We did see however, a herd of pronghorn antelope, and a decomposed carcass of an elk. Derek collected the teeth for Hunter, Max and Rachel. They thought it was cool, I thought it was gross.

We finished the hike right before the heavens broke open with a downpour. Pretty good timing, if I do say so myself. A word of advice, the mosquitoes in Yellowstone are more vicious than any other mosquito I've encountered anywhere. I sprayed repellent liberally all over everyone and we were still bitten. I was careful to spray everywhere but I didn't think to spray my neck under my hair. I had over ten mosquito bites on my neck that drove me to the brink of insanity for the rest of the trip. Spray repellent everywhere!!!

That night we stayed in Yellowstone Lake Hotel. We listened to a string quartet in the lobby. Ahh, the good life! Next morning we had breakfast at Steamboat Point, and sampled some small lakes by the wayside.

We also made a stop at a place called LeHardy Rapids, a place where you can watch trout jump upstream.

Can you see all the trout queueing up to take the jump? They are right above Emma's right foot. Maybe they aren't queueing up so much as taking a breather.

At this point. Derek and his family leave to go back home to Utah. This concludes the Yellowstone portion of our trip. Stay tuned for the Teton and Idaho portion.