Our Yellowstone Trip

Hi everyone... I missed you! We spent the last week on vacation in Yellowstone National Park. It was amazing and wonderful. If you love nature at all, then I suggest that you plan to make a trip there. We were amazed at all the things we saw. I thought I would share a little bit about our trip on the blog... next week I promise to be back with new recipes.

So we flew out of a small local airport into OHare for our switch over to Jackson Hole. We got to Chicago and were delayed 3.5 hours. Sad I know :( Which meant that we landed in Jackson Hole at midnight, which is 2AM our time. We were exhausted to say the least. As we got off the plane to go inside we went through these antler arches. I thought they were cool so I went back to take a picture. I had two members of security jump in front of me and stop me. Wow was I startled. No arch picture for me I guess.

Things got better though. We had the rental car shuttle waiting for us, and found our hotel relatively easy since it was so dark out. We crashed that night, but woke up to mountains and bright sunny day.

This is Jim with his new bear friend at the hotel.

Then we went downtown to see the stores and have breakfast. I had the most amazing bagel with eggs. I need to learn to make bagels :) Then we found that in the middle of town they have bigger antler arches. And you can take pictures without being a security risk. Yeah!

We then headed into the Park and saw our first waterfall. We were amazed, but little did we know that it was the probably the smallest one we would see :)

We then traveled to Cody, WY. We stayed at the historic Irma Hotel, which was originally owned by Buffalo Bill Cody. That is the original bar... and I got a sasparilla. We then watched a gun fight and went to the rodeo. The rodeo there goes every night in June, July, and August. It was amazing to see the show they put on. This girl who I think was 11 got the best barrel racing time. Amazing!

We then headed back into the park and hiked around Yellowstone Lake. Isn't it just beautiful!

Bears are a big deal in the park. There are bear attack signs everywhere. They sell bear spray and say that if you meet a bear you should act "big". This is me acting big! Too funny!

We then headed into the Canyon Area. We were staying in this area for our third night. I didn't really know what to expect.. but there really is a grand canyon in the park. Amazing! I know I keep saying everything is amazing, but it really was. The Canon Area had to large falls (Upper and Lower Falls). Don't worry the naming gets better with the geysers later in the trip.

The next day we went to the Norris area and saw our first thermal features. This one is called dragon mouth sprng. See I told you the names got better.

We then headed to the Tower - Rooselvelt area and checked out the lodge and the petrified tree.

We stayed the night in Silver Gate, Montana. Cutest little cabin, and it had a kitchen. I only made spaghetti, but it was nice to not have to eat out. They had one of those books where everyone writes about their stay and where they were from. It was amazing to see how far people had traveled: Japan, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. I thought we had traveled far from Michigan.

We then headed to the Mammouth Springs Area. The rock formations and springs were yep you guessed it AMAZING! However on the way there we ran into a slight animal issue. It is what they call an animal jam. I was scared for our poor rental car. But we all survived.

The pictures I took don't do the Mammoth Hot Springs justice. We had a great time walking around them, and visiting the Fort area. The Fort area was built a few years after the park started and it looked really well maintained. I'm not sure, but it looked like people could buy or rent the houses. I would love to live at Yellowstone.

We then headed out of the park to West Yellowstone. It was a cute little town. Reminded me of a mini Gatlinburg. We had some amazing pizza, which gave me an idea for a blog post :)

We then did the big finale... We checked out the geyser areas. I have to say that the weather was great the whole trip, except for this day. It was cold and rainy. BRRRR!!!! We still got lucky enough to see three big geysers go off. Old faithful which we actually watched 4 times (since we stayed in the Old Faithful area over night). We also saw the grand geyser... which went for like 15 minutes. Crazy! After the grand geyser we hiked to the riverside geyser and were lucky enough to watch that one erupt as well. That was really cool because it was across the river and we were able to see if from lots of diffferent angles. This is a picture of us by the River Geyser. Xmas card photo... I think so :)

We then went back to Jackson Hole. We went on a covered wagon ride. They took us into the canyon about a 20 minute ride and then we had a cowboy meal. See pics below :) Then they enertained us with cowboy songs. They fiddler player the Devil went down to Jackson and it was great.

We then headed out the following morning. Sad to leave a great area... but I was excited to pick up my Ginny Dog and see that the cats had survived.

My husband is ecstatic, because the football season has officially started. Last night the NFL teams started. Saturday I believe there are some big college games. My weekends will now be scheduled around football games. That is ok, because it also means lots of football food :) Next week will be football week and I will share some of our favorites.