Yellowstone

We spent the past weekend taking a short family vacation to Yellowstone. We stayed in a hotel on the way there and back and spent 2 nights camping in the park. The boys had a great time and really loved the whole camping experience. On our way out of the park we drove through the Grand Tetons and stopped for a quick family picture in front of my favorite mountain range.

The boys asked us every few minutes the whole way from Casper to Yellowstone if we were there yet. There is a vast amount of nothingness in Wyoming until you get close to the park - they did pretty good in the car but they were so excited when I told them we made it to Yellowstone.

We got to our campsite by early evening, so we had enough time to set up our tent, cook dinner, eat smores and read a little Harry Potter before bed.

The boys love to roast marshmallows.

They did great camping for 2 nights. It got pretty cold at night (in the mid 30s) but they never complained. Yellowstone has to be one of the best places to camp. There are several full bathrooms throughout the campsite complete with a dish washing station and then hot showers at the main camping center a few minutes away.

The boys saw all sorts of neat things. We hiked to a couple of waterfalls, saw lots of geysers, several deer, elk and buffalo and we even saw a bear cross the road in front of us.

We drove to the northern part of Yellowstone, which Greg and I don't remember seeing before. It was so pretty in that area - we especially loved the fields of wildflowers in the mountain region.

Ryan was a big fan of the geysers - he was even telling Greg how they worked by the end.

Great visit to Old Faithful.

This buffalo was walking down the opposite lane of traffic as we drove right by him. He was causing a 2 mile traffic jam behind him.

All 3 boys really liked building a fire.

The boys helped us to break down the tent by jumping on it to get all of the air out so we could roll it up.

We hiked to the main waterfall - which required a trip down about 400 stairs to get close to the base - then we hiked 400 stairs back up - the boys did great.

Greg really enjoyed telling the boys all about the geologic stuff in Yellowstone - like all of the mud pits and how we were really camping on one of the largest volcanoes in the world.

Ryan really liked helping Greg fill the car up with gas whenever we had to stop.

We had a great trip but we were glad to back home and in our own beds by the end of it.