A Drive By of Yellowstone

Tekara arrived Wednesday night and we got her squared away for school on Friday. The schedule is a little different here. She's on trimesters with 65 minute classes and will have release time seminary first thing in the morning. Jr High starts this Wednesday and get this...classes don't start until 8:30... I wish I had the schedule growing up instead of early morning seminary that started at 6 am and school that started at 7:15... lucky girl!

So, we decided that since Yellowstone was pretty much just on the other side of the Teton Mountains, we should take advanage of the opportunity and get a year long double pass to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton's National Parks.

We packed up everyone early Saturday morning and headed to the South Gate enterence of Yellowstone. We spent much more time in the car than we anticipated. We drove the 1.5 hours to Jackson, Wy and made a pit stop. Then we continuted on to the Gate. It took a lot longer than we thought- nearly another 1.5 hours of driving. By the time we hit the gate and Vistor's Center at West Thumb it was lunch time.

I won't bore you with details, so here is the run down:


Stopped at a few waterfalls
Saw Old Faithful
Attempted to see one of the Paint Pots
North rim of the Canyon and Upper Falls
Backtracked and left via West Yellowstone
Ate dinner at West Yellowstone



Enjoyed an 1 and 20 min drive home! Next time we will enter by the west gate- SOOO much less driving!

Needless to say, we were very impressed and are eager to go back and do some camping so we can hike several of the trails and see more of the gyeser basins as well as the canyon.

The most entertaining part of the trip was listening to Tim. He was so eager to see wildlife, like what you see in the documentaries about Yellowstone. The whole time we were there, we didn't see anything and Tim was making side comments about his disappointment. At one point I said "Look! Wildlife!" as I pointed to a herd of cows. It kind of became a running joke as we pointed to fish and people hiking, ect...

We are hoping to go back in September before the first snows and spend at least one night camping. I am looking forward to it!