My mom retired last December, and we asked her what she wanted to do to celebrate.
She wanted a vacation with her whole family,
and she chose Yellowstone, since none of her children had ever been before, and since she hadn’t been since the 1950’s with her own family.
Her cousin owns a cabin in Island Park, Idaho, just 20 minutes west of the West entrance of the park.
It was a beautiful cabin; 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3 living/family rooms and sleeps 20.
Even if we hadn’t been able to visit the park (due to the government shut-down), we would have had an awesome vacation in such an awesome cabin.
But, lucky for us, Tommy and Obama are apparently good friends, so The Chief opened up the park just for us!
As we entered the Park, our first views of the vista were wet and cold!
But the snow cleared up pretty quickly, and the cold made the steam from the thermal hot spots more impressive.
But, the cold did nothing for the smell of sulfur.
It was at our first smelly stop that we also saw our first sign of wild life
(though not to be our last)
We read somewhere that it’s easy to spot first-time visitors on their first day in the park – because they go out of their way to get pictures of Bison…
So, maybe we pulled off the main road and doubled back just to see this particular herd…and maybe by the end of the week we ended up seeing more Bison than we ever care to see again… but on our first day, it was super exciting!
We didn’t have a lot of time that first day because we were in charge of dinner that night.
But on our way out of the Park, we got to see our first elk.
This lone bull was chillin’ on the side of the road and was kind enough to oblige us with these photo ops.
The next day we drove into the Park and up to Gibbon Falls.
Tre fell asleep in the car, so Tommy missed it, but we had a great time and loved the view.
Tre was still asleep when we reached our next stop,
Norris Basin,
so Grandma volunteered to stay with him in the car while we checked out the smelly, steamy wonders.
Then we were off to Mammoth Hot Springs
I don’t even know what to say about what we saw.
It was amazing and ethereal.
A kind of beauty I’ve never seen before.
Loved it.
And loved being there with my family.
Can you see the scary, screaming faces in the picture above?
There is an elk herd that beds at Mammoth year round. They were right in the middle of the town while we were there.
A young bull was trying to move in on the herd and the dominant male was none too happy about it, so he ran this guy off, putting him in the perfect spot for some awesome pictures.
Because of the activity, there were some rangers on hand to make sure no visitors or animals got tangled up with each other. And it gave Josie a great opportunity to chat with a ranger for a few minutes.
That night back at the cabin, cousins relaxed together while my sweet Tommy heated gallons and gallons of water on the stove for people to bath in.
(We had realized the night before that we had no hot water; the management agency came to check it out and reported they would be unable to fix it during our stay. They offered us a different cabin, but we liked where we were and with Tommy willing to run an Asian-style bath house, why would we even consider moving?)
(And like a loser idiot wife, I didn’t even get one picture of his work!?!)
The next day we headed back in to the Park for our last day. We started out our adventures at another water fall (Lower Falls) and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.
Tre was asleep again, so Tommy missed it again.
But we had a great time again.
The hike back up was pretty rough and Josie’s positive attitude got lost somewhere along the way.
As we climbed, she whined and complained. I finally stopped her and asked her to look around us at the view.
Was it beautiful? Yes. Do you get to see things like this every day? No. So can’t we just enjoy it without complaining?
Momentary Silence, and then,
”I want to enjoy it and complain!”
Our last stop was at the quintessential landmark of Yellowstone:
Old Faithful!
I have waited my whole life to see OF erupt.
When we were kids, we had a view finder with pictures of Yellowstone. We also had a pencil case with pictures of Yellowstone. Those images were engrained in my mind,
and even though people told me it wasn’t that impressive, I was super eager to see it.
And I wasn’t disappointed!
It reminded me of the space shuttle launching – just so amazing! It’s crazy to think how long it’s been going on, and how regularly. So cool.
Josie’s comment:
“I love it, can we go now?”
Not only did I get to see Old Faithful, but Beehive Geyser erupted just a few minutes earlier!
It was the perfect finish to our awesome adventures at Yellowstone.
But there were still more adventures to be had!
And then we went home.
Happy Retirement, Mom!
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