Wyoming – Beauty and Disaster

Important News:  In case you knew of the saga that our renter fell through, we got a new renter, so we are good.  I’ll tell you about it later, since I’m behind on my posts, but for those of you who wanted a “real time” update on that important matter – there it is (PS we are currently in South Dakota)

Now here’s the actual post:  I’ve been wanting to go to Yellowstone for ages, it just hasn’t happened.  So this was the most important part of the trip for me.  Seeing as you have to make your reservations 6 months in advance, I decided to book it at the beginning of our trip so that if anything went wrong on the trip, we’d have made it to Yellowstone on time.

Well, first of all, we had a huge leak under our fridge.  I did everything in my power to fix it, but I’m a little inept at certain things, so I basically couldn’t fix it.  At some point I just drained all the water from the entire RV because it was the only thing I could do.  It worked, but we didn’t have water.  But other campers survive without water because there are sinks and showers etc… so we would live like that.  We went to the Grand Tetons first.  It was awesome.

Day 1 – Caleb was sick so he stayed in the RV and worked on writing his book.  The girls and I drove around, saw some beautiful scenery and some buffalo, and watched a movie on the Grand Tetons.  Afterwards we found a mountain lake and the girls swam in it.  It was picture perfect.

Day 2 – We spent the day at Jenny Lake, the most popular destination in the Tetons.  We rode a boat to the other side of the Lake, took a beautiful (and short) hike to a waterfall and then bumped into a Bear.  Don’t worry, once we knew the bear was there, we walked the other way until we found a Ranger.  We walked ahead and convinced the bear to get off the path and he let us pass.  So we were pretty close to the bear (and her cub) but there were lots of us and a ranger.

Day 3 We moved on to Yellowstone and as we drove into town, noticed an RV repair shop.  Hopefully they could help us!

Day 4 We drove around a big chunk of Yellowstone and saw a lot of stuff.  The best thing that we found (especially that the kids loved) was at one of the villages there was WiFi.  Yep, it was great.

Day 5 We had to reschedule our plans for the day because our RV was getting fixed this day and dogs aren’t allowed in much of the park.  So we dropped off the RV and drove around with the dog and had to take turns watching him while the others looked at cool stuff.

Day 6 Today was the day to go to Old Faithful.  It was great and all, but we were doing the “Young Scientist Program” and it was so awful and time consuming.  I want my kids to learn stuff for their school and all, but sometimes it’s just too difficult to do what they require.  So take note: Junior Rangers are awesome and fairly easy, but Young Scientist are very difficult.  When we were “finished” we went on to see the Grand prismatic Spring (which is what I wanted to see the most).  After hiking for 2 miles and getting caught in a huge storm, we had to turn back and alas, I had to give up and hopefully see it the next day (that didn’t happen, so this will remain on my bucket list)

Day 7….This is the day we left town, never did see the Grand Prismatic Spring or the Artists Paint Pots…more disaster came this day, but you’ll have to read about that in the next post…

In the end, we actually liked Grand Tetons more than Yellowstone.  Mostly for the same reason we liked Disney Adventure Park more than Disneyland.  Less people and less “theme”.

Blessings:

1. Beautiful
2. Got to see a Bear (and other animals)
3. RV repair shop at the park!
4. Finally got to see Yellowstone (although loved Grand Tetons more)

Zoe also wanted to start a blog, so check hers out at Travelbyeheart.webs.com

Harmony’s Corner (These comments do not necessarily reflect the views of her mother)

We went to Wyoming. It was super cool because in Wyoming if you were nine or up you could sit in the front!!!!! (Guess what I’m nine). When I was in Wyoming I went to the Grand Tetons, it was pretty fun. Guess what? You won’t believe it, there were clouds 10 feet above the Jackson Lake! At The Grand Tetons National Park, I filled out a booklet and I got a patch and a badge that said “Grand Teton National Park”. It was pretty.

I also went to Yellowstone. It wasn’t as pretty (to me and Zoe), but to my Mom and Caleb it was more pretty. Anyway, I also forgot to mention we saw a bear and cubs in Grand Teton (one cub ran up the tree). Also, in Grand Tetons, a deer ran away from us and hid behind a trash can, it was really funny. Back to Yellowstone: We took a hike to “Hidden Falls”. Oh yeah, a bison ran to our car when we were on the street pulled over. At Yellowstone we stayed at an amazing campground. It had a forest.