Yellowstone and the Tetons

We had a great trip to Idaho and Utah the first part of August. We started off by heading to the Jackson, Grand Tetons and Yellowstone in a whirlwind tour. It was great and we all had a blast. Our first stop was in Jackson at the visitor's center. Isaac was pretending to be a moose.

The Tetons were amazing. We mostly drove through on our way to Yellowstone, but it was gorgeous.

I have not been to Yellowstone since I was a kid. I loved it then and I think I loved it even more this time. I would have loved to stay much longer. We stayed in a cabin in the park for a night and were hit by a big hail storm that knocked the power out temporarily at dinner time. That was really cool.

The geyser and hot pots were, of course, amazing. We were giddy and happy with the scenery.

The kids loved the boardwalks. I remember that being one of my favorite parts when I went there as a kid. What's not to love?

We saw a lot of buffalo. We also saw some elk and deer. Thankfully we did not see any bears. There was a death while we were there (we saw an ambulance cruise by) and there was another death the month before. Bears are cool, but not up close.

We spent the night at Canyon and went to one of the overlooks. It was spectacular.

This reminds me of Christina's World. Isaac really liked it there. My mom had to totally scare him to keep him from doing dangerously reckless things.

In the morning, my parents watched the kids and Aleks and I took a little hike. We started by heading downs these stairs in to the canyon. It was pretty amazing, but reminded me that I am sometimes a bit skittish about heights. We survived without falling to our death in the canyon. I will have to remind myself of that the next time I am in a similar situation.

The sunrise was amazing, particularly since it had been foggy. 

We had a nice picnic lunch at Old Faithful. I remember many lunches like this as a kid on our road trips: sandwiches, chips, a vinyl table clothe, coleman cooler and some fruit. Tasty! Unfortunately the mosquitoes thought we were tasty.

I love this family picture at Old Faithful. Authentic... 

My parents rented a van so we could travel together. It was a lot of fun.

On our way home we stopped for burgers at a really great place in the middle of no where. There is a yak farm nearby and they do offer yak burgers. The daddy yak started to charge us. We decided that was a good time to leave and get dinner.