Day 8

I was so exhausted yesterday (still am!) so we came back to the hotel room and crashed.  

Yellowstone was absolutely amazing!  We only saw one loop of it yesterday and prior to entering the park traveled through Bear Tooth Pass, a scenic drive to the top of a mountain where we saw the biggest Dandelions I have ever seen:

 were able to feed chipmunks by hand

and have a snowball fight. 

And we saw the most amazing mountain top views:



Grace and I also had a bit of altitude sickness.  If we were sitting it was fine but walking or running...not so much. 

Before entering Yellowstone we stopped in the small town of Cooke.  We ate at a saloon and visited a trading post where Nathan bought a gun with a holster.  From that point on he pretended to be a sheriff or a buffalo or bear hunter.  Funny kid!

This is what Ryan wanted to order but instead just took a picture of the menu:



Once we got to Yellowstone we were on the constant look out for wildlife.  Bison were everywhere, including right next to our car. This is better than another tourist who said he got stuck for 45 minutes when a herd of buffalo decided to cross and stop in the middle of the road blocking all the traffic. We also saw a black bear which was pretty close to us.  Apparently, we (the crowd of observers) were a bit too close because a park ranger came by demanding we return to our vehicle.  All the other bears we saw looked more like black balls of fur about a mile away.

We hiked a short distance to see a lake.  This was fun with the exception of these huge bugs flying all around and the massive drop off which was right next to the trail.  Freaked me out watching Nathan next to that! 
We noticed smoke in the distance which was a bit concerning.  There is a forest fire there caused by lightning from the night before.  The park rangers were considering closing one of the entrances until they could get better control of it.

We saw Mammoth Hot Springs but by the time we got there, it was getting late and the kids were spent.  It took forever to exit the park because of the line of cars with the first person, who refused to move to the side, driving about 25 miles per hour.  It was 27 miles to the exit so it was a bit frustrating. 

One thing that pepped us up was finding Connecticut, Delaware, and Maine.  We still need Rhode Island and Vermont.  :)  And we saw another Hawaii!

We are heading back there today but this part of the trip (Yellowstone) seems to interest Mike and I much more than the kids.  We may have to limit what we do today so we can get back early.  There is a rodeo we want to see and the kids want to swim.  Next year I think Disney is in order!