Thursday, August 12, 2010

Day 3 Onto our big adventure in the wild outdoors!

Day 3:  Hi Ho, Hi Ho, its off to Yellowstone we go.  No significant thoughts today--we are just so excited to get to our first sightseeing destination.  We enter Yellowstone about 9:30 am and start down the road when all cars are stopped.  I am thinking, "great, how long are we going to sit here and why are we stopped?"  Finally, the cars start to move and we see a bunch of people on the side of the road with cameras.  As we get closer, there is a Bison just a few hundred feet off the side of the road, scratching his head in the grass.  How mighty and wonderous the beast is up close.  We pull over and grab our cameras--we have to walk back to where the photo spot would be greatest.  But we have to wait for Skyler who can not find her shoe amongst the chaos in the back seat.  I tell her to just get out in her socks and come along.  When we get there the Bison is gone!  Ian was so bummed, but I told him I was sure we would get more opportunities to get photos of the great beasts.  So we move forward and sure enough about 15 minutes later more people and more animals.  We saw several bison, bull deer, and prarie like dog animals--they chirped like a bird.  Then we were onto Gueyser country, with our final destination of Old Faithful.  We arrived at Old Faithful about 75 minues before the anticipated eruption.  At first I told the kids we needed to go so that we could make it to the Grand Tetons before it got too late.  Then, I thought, "We are at Old Faithful, which really looks like nothing that amazing, unless we see it erupt."   So we ate some food and did some browsing/shopping at the gift shops, and by the time we finished all of that, we had to rush to get back to Old Faithful for the show.  It was right on time and quite magnificent.  Although the other gueysers we visited we just as amazing in their own way.
     So we left Old Faithful and looking at the time and the fatigue of the kids after 6 hours of touring, I asked them if they wanted to go to the Grand Tetons.  They both said no and after calculating the extra 3 hours of driving just to get there and then to Sheridan which was our final resting place for the day, I had to let go of the idea of missing such a great wonder.  And later I was sure glad we skipped it.  The road we had to take to get to Sheridan was a back mountain road with construction and slow drivers, making our drive much longer than expected.  We did not get to Sheridan until 8:00 pm--I can not imagine what time we would have rolled in if we went to the Grand Tetons.  So, that adventure is left unfolded and for another time in the future. It rained all afternoon, right after we left Yellowstone and since we were all tired and dirty--never ended up showering at the campground--long lines and quite cold to take a shower--we all agreed that spending the night indoors was in order.  So the kids are finally sound asleep in a comfy bed and clean and warm. 
   I will send pictures next time--it is late and it takes a long time to upload the pictures, so I am going to bed--I just wanted to catch up a little on my blogging.  Oh yea--my strange thing I saw today in Wyoming--well there are a few, but the one that caught my eye:  A building--all in one--post office/discount liquor/restaurant--how strange!  Good bye for now--onto the Crystal Caves and Badlands tomorrow!

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