Yellowstone.

  On Thursday afternoon, we made it Yellowstone National Park. Wow! That clearly is a pretty lousy description to a place that is awe inspiring. However, that is the first word that came to mind. This was our first night camping, and possibly the last on this trip. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely the right thing to do. I mean how can you go to one of the coolest National Parks in the U.S. and not camp? I'll get into that later.
  We got our tents up and decided to go exploring. We saw Bison, and lots of them. I would clearly estimate we saw a 100 or more on both sides of the road grazing. They were not far away either as shown by the picture on the right. They got so close in fact that there was some serious congestion with people waiting for the Bison to cross the street as they took their sweet time. It was quite the spectacle. One Bison and calf blocked traffic in one lane for like 15 minutes as the calf was feeding from its mother. Another time, the Bison was so close to the car, Tim turned the side and yelled, "Holy Schnikees!" as it was quite large. We also checked out some of the Falls and then went back to the campsite. We got a good fire going and cooked hotdogs over an open flame. For dessert we had none other then the famous Smores. This might have been the moment of the trip listening to the kids telling each other jokes and laughing uncontrollably.

   So, we eventually went to bed. Dale and I had a blown up mattress and shared the tent with Luke. So, every time we tried to fall asleep, something happened. Someone's car alarm went off. Then Luke woke us up because he needed to be changed. Then it started to rain. Dale and I slept in a V as our butts sank to the ground, legs up in the air. We re-inflated the mattress but still ended up on the ground come morning. As Dale put it, it was quite comical. Needless to say we were pretty tired the next morning.

  Tired or not, we were determined to see as much as we could of Yellowstone. We took in the rapids. Saw more Bison. We even saw a Bear. It was so close to my car, I could have pet it. As I am trying to take a picture, the Park Ranger is telling us to move along for safety. We saw the Mammoth Hot Springs and while there, Mule Deer and ended our day at Olde Faithful.  Onward to Grand Teton National Park. We passed through the Continental Divide. When we started, it was 82 degrees and dropped in a matter of minutes to 36 degrees and was sleeting golf balls. It was wild. I guess anything can happen at 8300'.  Made me think of the movie Day After Tomorrow. It slowly rose back up to the low 60's when we got to our cabin. Quite an eventful day.