Yellowstone..

I'm going crazy right now, so I thought another post about our vacation might do ME some good.

Last I told you about Napoleon Dynamite and Preston, Idaho. From there, we made it to my brother Ron's house in Rigby, then we headed up to Yellowstone for some camping. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Yellowstone! I can't get enough of its beauty. It was a little frustrating because I still hadn't recovered from my knee surgery, so we cut our camping short a couple days, but still got to drive through the park and saw SO many cool things...Old Faithful, elk, buffalo, got to play in the river, and even saw snow. Meghan was really excited to see all the waterfalls. She LOVES waterfalls just like her mom. We both even hiked to Tower Falls with my sore knee! Anything for a waterfall. The kids enjoyed playing in the river and we got "stopped" by a herd of buffalo teenagers and calves in the middle of the road. Jon took the pic below when they decided to move on and walked right by his window. This happened to him the last time we were here and the dude turned and looked right at Jon. This time they just ignored us and moved down the road. I enjoyed everything, but was disappointed that we didn't see any bears. I ALWAYS see bears when we're there.

(Top right is a herd of buffalo that blocked the road and walked right by Jon's window...no zoom used. Middle left is Ian and Meg playing in snow. Far right pic is some buffalo poop Ian found by the river.)

We had almost finished the loop when we came upon lots of cars pulled over. There wasn't an area where buffalo would fit, etc., so I told Jon (well I screamed) "PULL OVER...I JUST KNOW IT'S A BEAR...LOOK, THE RANGERS ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD...I JUST KNOW IT'S A BEAR!" How smart am I? Very. 100 feet away was a grizzly grubbing under a log for some snacks. It could care less that everyone was gawking at it, taking pics, pointing, etc., etc. It started wandering close to the road, so the rangers packed up and scooted everyone on. My heart was still so excited to have seen the grizzly when we came upon the bald eagle habitat. I had hoped to get a picture on our way out, but neither the mom or dad were perched up in the tree. (Disappointment - both were there when we entered the park - did I get a picture? NO.) About 2 minutes later, ALMOST to the park exit, we saw a couple cars pull over by the river. I looked up and there was one of the bald eagles perched at the top of a dead tree, all magnificent, looking across the river with a beautiful sunset beginning in the background. There was no place to pull over at that point, so my picture is a little blurred, but the "in person" view was absolutely fantastic. The kids were soooo excited. Meghan still talks about seeing it! This was a good trip, but we were glad to head back to Idaho...well, TRIED to head back to Idaho. We had stopped in West Yellowstone for some dinner and we were so tired when we started back. It was about 10 minutes later I noticed a sign that said "entering Yellowstone National Park". I thought maybe I had missed it the day before on our way up, because everything looked the same. About 10 minutes later Jon noticed the compass on our mirror was reading north and we should have been going west. We also came across a sign for Big Sky, Montana! After a quick scramble in pitch dark, we realized I had him take a wrong turn heading out of town. All was not wasted, though. After we turned around, heading back to West Yellowstone we saw a deer on the side of the road. Really cool! A couple hourse later we were back in Rigby. It was good to be back to my brother's comfy beds!