Next Stop, Yellowstone

It had been 8 years since Zach and I had been to Yellowstone so we decided that we would spend a couple of nights there before heading to my mom and dad's. I was so excited to show the kids Old Faithful and all the stinky pots. I remember going as a kid and thought that it was a pretty cool place. I wanted to share that with my kids. Well, It didn't really turn out the way I had hoped. We went to get a camp site at Grant Village, the campground I stayed in as a kid, and it was completely full. We then went to some other campgrounds and it was the same thing. FULL!!! It decided to rain on us for most of the day and so it was hard to walk around to all the sites. I really wanted to see the Upper and Lower Fall but that didn't happen. We were able to see Old Faithful and a few of the hot pots surrounding Old Faithful. We did see some buffalo, not as many as I had expected, and we did see some elk but they were quite a bit off the road so it was hard for the kids to see them. We finally decided to go to West Yellowstone and see if we could find a campground that wasn't FULL. We finally found one and started to put up the tent when it decided to rain. I was soaked, Zach was soaked, the tent was soaked and it was suppose to be cold that night. I knew we were all going to freeze. I was so mad that I went and sat in the car with the kids. Zach came in and asked who I was mad at and I said, "the rain". He just laughed at me and then said that we could just pack up and head to my parents. I couldn't decide what to do because there was still so much we hadn't seen yet and I didn't want the kids to miss out on anything, so we asked the kids what they wanted to do. Stay and sleep and freeze or go to grandma and grandpa's house. Well of course they said they wanted to go see grandma and grandpa. So we packed up and left. I called my dad as we were headed out of town and asked if it would be ok to come a couple days early and of course he said, "talk to the boss" so I sweet talked mom into letting us come early. Let's just say it didn't take much sweet talking. We arrived in Ogden about 12am. The kids were so happy to be there and frankly so was I. Even though we didn't get to see all the sights, It was still a great road trip!!!

Waterfall

I can't remember the name of this waterfall, but it sure was beautiful. As we were driving we could here the crash of the water. We could hear it but we couldn't see it. As we drove around the curve there was the little visitor center and it was just a hop skip and a jump to the waterfall. It wasn't a planned stop but I'm sure glad we did. That's what is so great about driving. If there is something that we want to see and spend a little bit more time at we could. If we saw all there was to see in a short period of time then we just moved onto the next stop. What a great way to travel.

Devil's Tower

On our way to Utah we also saw Devil's Tower. As we were driving all of a sudden this huge rock just jumps out at you and the closer you get to it the bigger it gets. It was an amazing sight. We took a hike all the way around it. The kids loved to climb on the rocks and chase the butterflies. We even saw a guy climbing it. He looked like a little ant. It was so beautiful.