Trip to Yellowston and the Grand Tetons

We felt really blessed to be able to take off for 8 days on a road trip to see the Grand Tetons in Wy and Yellowstone. We started early one morning and hit Multanomah Falls in Oregon, which spans in total over 800 feet.

Never takes our family long to log some funny pictures.
This one cracked me up for hours. Peyton's eyes!!

We did the most driving of the whole trip in the first day, but we did make time to stop at the Oregon Trail Museum.
It was interesting and definitely worth the stop.
In this area, you could actually walk down and see the wheel ruts from the original pioneer trains.
We spent the night in Boise and had dinner with one of Will good friends, Carl.
After a long day of driving, the kids were ready to swim, swim, swim!!


In the morning we headed out and hit one other spot that had some Oregon Trail history.
A place called Register Rock has some rocks guarded that have carvings from the pioneers, where they logged their names and dates. On the picture above, it was some art work of an 8 year old kid, and it was dated 1866!!
It was pretty incredible.

With in a few hours, we were in Jackson, WY and looking at the Tetons.
We road an aerial tram up one of the to a little over 10,000 ft.
The views were amazing though you can't really see the Teton range because we are ON it. (those pics are coming)



Once we got back down, we drove another 30 minutes to our hotel. On the way, we spotted two huge Moose right off the road.
They were some of our favorite wildlife we saw the whole trip.
We arrived at our hotel in the late evening and pretty much just crashed after checking out the lodge.
In the morning, we watched the sun rise on the mountains from our room.
There was a huge herd of Elk grazing in the grass that we could spot from our room. You can see them in the picture above towards the bottom.
This was the view from our BED!!
We took the kids on a 5 mile hike this day. We hiked around Jenny Lake then up to Inspiration Point for an incredible view.
We passed some neat waterfalls.

My crazy girls giving their "big eyes".
This was the last stretch up the steep part to the top.
At the top. You can see where we started, directly on the other side of the lake.
The good news, was that on this hike, you can choose to shuttle back on a boat, to shorten the hike (because we had some serious swimming to do!!).
It was a super pretty area.
We got back a little after lunch a swam for the afternoon. The weather was perfect!
We found some Morgan size wildlife........
She was obsessed with this thing for a long time.
We got changed and headed up the road just a bit to Colter Bay, to have dinner. As we arrived, there was a HUGE thunder and lightning storm arriving, with several more behind it.
This was Morgan's first time ever hearing thunder. Kind of fun. I love a good storm and we rarely get that kind of weather in the NW.


Morgan entertaining us as always at the dinner table.
That night, with the storms, the sunset was INCREDIBLE!!! We went for a drive to spot some wildlife but the sky was the big show for the evening.

Just incredible!!

These kids were just FANTASTIC on this trip. Considering the drive, the sleeping arrangements, the long days, they were just spectacular.
Okay, I have to include this picture for a memory. The lighting that night, once it was dark, was just around the bend for us to see it from our porch. So the big kids and I jumped in the car at 9:45pm to go chase down the storm and better views.

It is SUPER dark when there are cities anywhere and whenever I'd pull over the car to watch, the kids, in a playful way, would get a little nervous and freaked. It was so dark, and there was NO ONE around, we were 15 miles from the hotel and you KNOW there is wildlife (and lightning strikes) that could show up anytime.

Once while we were watching and getting a little creeped out, something dropped and made a big noise in the back of the car, which completely put us into fits of cautious laughter. We were out of there!!

On the drive back, we ran into a Coyote in the middle of the road, which added to the fun. So this pic is the only reminder we have of one of our favorite memories of the trip.
In the morning we made our way up to Yellowstone officially.
We stayed in Canyon Junction, which is right on the edge of the "Grand Canyon" of the Yellowstone. It was VERY impressive.
We hiked straight down into the canyon (it was very steep) to view the biggest waterfall in Yellowstone, the Lower Falls. As we hiked down, there was a beautiful rainbow shinning from the midst from the falls.

I didn't really get a great picture of the falls. It was MASSIVE and extremely powerful. Pictures just never do waterfalls justice.
The kids champed the hike back up. (Well, Morgan got a ride)

We also hit the first of many Geyser Basin, to start showing the kids the amazing thermal features in the park.

The above one was one of our favorites. It was called Dragon's Mouth, and it made HUGE noises that did sound exactly like a fire breathing dragon. We kept talking about how crazy it would have been to be one of the first explorers in this area.
The above picture in hard to see, but we actually saw a mama grizzly and her babies working on a carcass. It was pretty far away, but was still fun to spot. We could see it better with the binoculars.
This was the biggest Elk we saw, and it was right off the road. Unfortunately he was pretty hurt.
Lots and lots of bison.........for days. They are still my favorite though because they are just SO BIG!!
What really surprised us though was when we pulled into our row of cabins that night, there was a buffalo laying in the grass right next to a cabin. It was just chilling, but seemed incredible out of place........until you remember you are in Yellowstone and this is the norm.
The next day we did a loop of new territory around the park, that would include a fun swimming hole (swimming is not a feature of Yellowstone. No pools and not warm enough natural water).
We visited a few more Geyser Basins, and saw one shoot off unexpectedly.
Love the colors!!
We had lunch at a place called Sheepeater Cliff. I had heard there was good bouldering for the kids.
After a little encouraging, the kids enjoyed some fun rock climbing. We even got Morgan to the top (with me mostly carrying her).
Then it was time for the Hot Springs. At Boiling River, the natural hot springs warms the shore line and they have made a nice little wading area. This was a place I had came when I was 18 and had always talked about it to the kids.
One inch too close to the springs and it's HOT!! Too far the other way, FREEZING. Of course, it's safe for kids as long as they understand the concept.
We just moved around and found several great spots to chill. We spent about an hour here.

After having some lunch, we continued our drive and hit a HUGE petrified tree. A tree literally turned to stone from volcanic ash. It was amazing.
The picture below isn't much, but along this valley, we ended up seeing literally thousands of buffalo. It was never ending buffalo buffet and it was a beautiful drive.
We also tracked a few wolves in this area.

The kids got super lucky. We were in the right place at the right time for them to jump on a horse before it got put away from a tourist ride.
Every night, we would drive around looking for wildlife, then head back and crash at the hotel.
The next morning, we headed out again, but this time we stepped back into civilization just long enough to see an IMAX on Yellowstone and visit a Grizzly and Wolf Habitat.

The show was great. There were some incredible images.
Seeing wolves and bears up close, but not in nature is great in it's own way. This bear was HUGE.
In the bear den.
We hit a few more impressive Geysers on our way to Old Faithful.
This one below had the most incredible colors to it. Don't you love Morgan melting on top of Will's head? I was shooting this pic from a tiny boardwalk. I couldn't back up......
We arrived at Old Faithful and started the waiting......
I love watching my kids be together. I NEVER stage a picture like below. They just always surprise me with the way they connect.
After some waiting, Old Faithful was ever faithful and gave us a great show.
We had the BEST dinner that night at the Snow Lodge. The food in Yellowstone is not great. We were CRAVING good food and this dinner was amazing.
On the way home, the buffalo had taken over the roads. We had to dodge them like crazy. It was super fun.
You can see in the rear view mirror there is one RIGHT outside of Morgan's window too.
We stopped at the Canyon again to see it with sunset colors.
Gotta love Morgan in her headphones still. :)
The next day it was time to start heading home. I'd found a hotel, the Fairmont, that had a huge pool and slide that was heated by a hot springs. Yep, the pool was 93 degrees. My kind of pool!!
We all went down the slide a zillion times, and little Morgan was going down this 350ft water slide by herself!!
The pool had some nice shallow areas that Morgan was able to take off her jacket and practice some real swimming. She made tons of progress this trip.
I love the pic above. Yep, that's Morgan floating like a beached whale.
Will and I loving that our kids are getting big enough we don't have to watch them like hawks anymore. Go play, and check in every once in a while. Love it!!
The next day, we stopped at Silverwood theme park in Corde' lane, Id. We spent the whole day playing in the water park and playing in the theme park. There was one roller coaster there, Tremors, that was AMAZING.

I am normally the one that thinks the roller coasters are never fast enough or crazy enough. This one was good!!
Deaven braving the big slides with Dad.
Overall, it was a fantastic trip. We loved being together, seeing so much amazing landscape and especially seeing the animals. I have a few great pics on my phone that I need to get on here as well.

If anyone is ever doing a Yellowstone trip, let me know. I have LOTS on info. :)