Yellowstone

My parents and Randal's son came to visit for 2 weeks.. after driving it was far closer to 1 week.. boo. We didn't all fit in one vehicle, so we rarely went anywhere as a family. My parents, and my two kids went to Cody a few times, as well as Yellowstone once. Randal and trevor went to YEllowstone multiple times, as well as the Dino Museum and up to Billings among other things.
Since I wasn't there, I won't talk about their travels. but.. heres my adventures

I decided that there was one day that looked decent enough to make an attempt to go to Yellowstone. I was worried it was going to rain on us, but wanted them to get to the park at least once this vacation. We headed up towards teh Northwest Entrance...except I was a dork and missed my turn. We ended up in Red Lodge, which, normally wouldn't be that big of an issue, except the Beartooth highway was closed. doh! We turned around, stopped in Bear Creek at this little cafe that boasts to have the best banana cream pie in teh world. I don't know if it was the best in the world, but it was definetely extremely good!! I highly reccommend this little cafe! The folks that run it are super nice, and have delicious food! It was a great "oops" find :) After lunch and turning around we finally got back up track and headed up the Chief Joseph scenic highway. No animals, but probably for the best since dad was driving. We got to the park and headed towards the Lamar Valley. We saw buffalo, Elk, deer, geese, and Finally... bears! First we saw a big old grizz dining on a pronghorn, which was gruesome, but quite cool as well. People were extremely stupid as they were WAY too close to this bruin! Had he gotten territorial about his dinner, there would have been much chaos, mayhem and death and maimings!! Then a drive further down the road found a black bear. People were even closer to this young bear!! crazy! We drove past, and dad and I hopped out. I started walking towards it and noticed it was coming our direction. We backed up... then it started running in our direction.. which caused us to run towards the car. He stopped, climbed a tree, we paused, back down the tree. Screw this! in the car we went. I got some great pictures hanging out the window from teh safety of the car. We went into mammoth, had dinner at teh new grill, and then headed back the way we came. The grizz was still there, this time he was facing the road. awesome. I should have gotten great photos, but I was dumb and took them while standing on the edge of a running car, so it was a bit blurry :( All in all, not a bad trip.

Randal, and I and the kids went to the geyser basin yesterday for the first time in forever (he and trevor went, but the rest of us hadn't been there in a while). We ate lunch at Grotto and Rocket, and Randal and Sierra wandered down to check out a few of the geysers/ pools down the boardwalk. While they were gone Rocket errupted! I love that geyser, it's pretty dang impressive. I held Jasper up so he could look at it, and told him it was his very first geyser. He stared at it was a "what the heck is that" expression. :) Randal and Sierra came back and we headed to Oblong. Daisy errupted in the distance, and I had the opportunity to share it with an elderly couple walking behind me. We waited at Oblong for about 15 minutes, but Sierra was getting restless. We headed for the car, pausing to admire a trout in the Firehole River momentarily. Sawmill was errupting as we went past, and got us wet. sierra liked it, until we hit the steam. She couldn't see, and it scared her. About that time, Oblong errupted.. dang it. oh well. We saw plume, and Lion errupt from a distance as well. We saw a few elk, deer, and buffalo on the way there and home.. but nothing super impressive. Still a fun day all in all.