After the reception, we drove back to Yakima for the night and fell into bed just before midnight. The next morning (JULY 18), we woke up and packed all of our stuff and loaded the van again. We then drove to Lake Easton for Nathan's mom's family's annual summer get-together and hung out there for a few hours. Here are all of the next generation (the great-grandkids sitting with Nathan's grandma):
Does it seem like perhaps my boys are a little too used to having their picture taken? LOL!
And here are the grandkids with Grandma Christine:
Note. By my count, we're missing six of the grandkids here. Further note, of the six missing, five are girls. Yup, a bit heavy on the granddaughters. No worries, though, I did my part to make up for it by providing three great grandsons, LOL!
Anyhow. After departing from there, we drove on to Missoula, MT that Sunday night. The next day, JULY 19, we made it to Yellowstone in the early afternoon. We picked up our Junior Ranger program materials and then proceeded to make it partially around the park loop. Along the way, we got to see a couple brown bears, two wolves, many bison and plenty of other wildlife. All three boys also got it into their heads that they each want a camera:
Given that we didn't go out and buy additional cameras and that Noah had left his own camera at home, we made do with taking turns using both my purse camera (above) and my "real" camera. ;) This means we ended up with a LOT of photos. ;) Here's one of my favorites:
This is at Sulphur Cauldron and, well, it really did stink. ;)
That night found us wandering through Jackson, WY trying to find lodging just before midnight. We hadn't been sure about our plans so didn't make reservations. Big mistake. Oy. We FINALLY found a hotel with one room available and snagged that before just falling into bed. (Note, the time, itself, wasn't so much the problem since we generally are night owls anyhow, but we simply hadn't planned well and so hadn't found any place to eat dinner either...had been going on just snacks we had in the van with us.)
Anyhow. JULY 20: We woke up the next morning earlier than we'd have liked and headed back to Yellowstone, stopping along the drive to take this picture at the Grand Tetons:
We also, of course, had to stop at Old Faithful:
(Sorry, I have better pictures of the geyser, itself, but didn't remember to get this one with the boys also in the frame until toward the end of this event. Note that Asher has the purse camera at this point...they took turns throughout the several minutes of the eruption, and I ended up with 40 pictures of this same thing, lol.)
After seeing Old Faithful a couple of times, eating lunch, and finishing the boys' Junior Ranger programs, we headed out to a nearby geyser basin:
Yes, it was windy and smelly. ;) We left this spot and started the journey home, stopping once more to see a few more natural wonders (and observe the forest fire in the distance that the rangers informed us they were battling). I just love all the colors of Yellowstone. Here's a little sample of the other photos we have:
On the way out of the park, we were privileged to see a grizzly bear (from the van) and then proceeded with the long drive home. :)
Whew.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 07:00AM ;)
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