Yellowstone

I have a lot of fond memories of Yellowstone and Island Park from my Childhood, so I wanted to try to re-create some of that for my kids.

I wanted to visit Big Springs and show the kids how big the fish can get there and let them feed them from the bridge. Unfortunately the seagulls got most of the bread, next time I'll just bring change for the fish food machines.

Another one of my favorite things was floating the Henry's Fork River to Mack's Inn, so I really wanted my kids to experience it too.

Kiera hated her life jacket, but eventually she got comfortable enough to fall asleep.

It was a lot of walking and our stroller got a flat tire at Mammoth. Eli and I took turns carrying the kids and we had to skip some of it because it was too many stairs with the small kids and strollers. We saw just about everything we wanted to though, but the kids were not as excited to see hot pools and geisers as I thought they would be. It was much hotter than I remember yellowstone being since it was 89 degrees and the afternoon thundershowers were a welcome relief. Kate had like 15 mosquito bites at one time. It was also windy and bright which made their eyes water and then they would get sunscreen in their eyes. Beck had quite a few melt downs and we teased that the Beck geiser was about to go off again. Eli has a pretty funny video maybe I can figure out a way to post. it.

On the way home we drove through Teton National Park and Jackson Hole. We planned to do some activities there as well but we were too worn out and didn't have enough time. We will have to plan a trip sometime just to visit Jackson. We did get to visit my brother-in-law Hyrum who was working at Camp New Fork. Eli was really excited because he worked there too as a teenager.

I hadn't been to Yellowstone in 17 years and so I was glad we could fit in a family vacation this summer.