YeLLoWSToNe PaRT I

It’s our first full day at Yellowstone and we are heading out for our first hike. Long day yesterday of traveling by plane to Salt Lake City and then a car ride to Yellowstone that took five hours. Our cabin is sooo cute and comfortable, and the drive to Yellowstone was beautiful. When we first got into the park, there were mule deer all over the place, and I spotted a couple bison on our way to our place. But when we got to our cabins, BISON were hanging out like they were family pets greeting us! Huge animals! We all crashed hard the first night and then woke up at like 5:30 a. m ready to get rolling on our first hike, which we are on our way to now. This a.m. Tukey came to snuggle with me and he said, “This is my best vacation already!” We had been in Yellowstone only 8 hours and about 6 of them were spent sleeping! So, that’s it for now. I’m going to turn this off and start looking for animals!

9:51 a.m. and we’ve just finished our first official Yellowstone hike which was called Moderate at about 2 miles. Called Thumb Basin. We saw a ton of geysers that were really beautiful and then hoofed it to the top of a mountain for a beautiful view. The little boys took charge and were trail blazers, while Diva and I of course,lagged behind. She cried twice this a.m. – once about falling which wasn’t that big of a deal, and then she got her finger stuck in a thing where you retrieve info from. All in all, a good hike, a little strenuous toward the end but awesome views made it totally worthwhile. Now we are heading to some Mystic Falls or something like that. OH, best part of that hike, on our way down, we came upon some mule deer that were just hanging out, oblivious to us. Very cool sight. I kept saying, where is all the wildlife, well, we got a glimpse right out there in their habitat. Tukey just said he doesn’t want to go on another hike because he’s not feeling well. I told him this was the whole reason we came out here. I am sure this next hike will bring some tears from at least 2/3 of my children. Maybe even me if they don’t cooperate. Signing off to enjoy the views of this car ride!

So, it is now around 7:30 p.m. on Sunday night. The first hike was fine, bearable and beautiful, then we went to Mystic Falls and saw a bunch of cool geysers that were filled with amazing colors, these hot pools, that look like you are in outer space. So, then we go up this hike that had a ton of switchbacks, which I never knew what they were before this trip, but like zig zags up a hill and it was a killer, and very hard, for me anyway. I’m bitching the whole way up, and so is diva and we’re feeding off each other, but we kept going and got to the top, and yeah, it was beautiful, and I’m glad I made I up to the top of this mountain thing but I KNEW how my body would react and I was worn out. We were supposed to stay in that area which was where Old Faithful is, but after lunch, our family collapsed and came back to our cabin and slept for like 1-1/2 hours. Which we sooo needed. I think I get heat stroke, just like my dad does, or at least that’s what I’m saying! So we napped and it saved my life. Then when we woke up we look outside our cabin window and there were two huge bison out there just hanging out! The kids went out and saw them, and Diva named them Buffy and Muffy. Then the weather started to turn and there was a great, great rainstorm. I was so happy just sitting there on our little cabin porch with my family watching the rain. And now it is glorious out and I’m sitting on a rocking chair watching the mountains and also watching Diva come back up from Yellowstone Lake. And now she has to go potty so I’m signing off for now. Xoxo

July 14, 2009
I didn’t write at all yesterday – it was a busy day where I discovered something I already kinda knew. I am a wuss. A big wuss. Another thing I discovered is that if given the chance to walk up a big ass mountain or take a golf cart to the peak, I would choose a golf cart. Unfortunately, we did not have that option. So yesterday, we started our day at 7:oo a.m. and headed to some place with a waterfall but we couldn’t hike that trail because it was raining so bad. We did have our ponchos though so that was handy. Then we went to Mount Washmore which is the highest elevation in Yellowstone. Did I know this before our hike? No. It was a six mile round trip hike. Here is something else I discovered so far: I am not a pleasant hiker. Not at all. Neither are two-thirds of my children at any given time.

Yesterday, Tukey was crying hysterically, “I wanna go home! I never wanted to go on this stupid trip.” It was a tough hike, and when we got closer to the top of Mount Washmore, it started hailing. HAILING! And that same day, I got sunburned. So, it’s very true what they say about the weather being completely unpredictable in Yellowstone, even in July.

Best part of yesterday: Two things: the grizzly bear we saw up on a mountain; we were secured in our car driving, and when you come up to a traffic jam, you know there is an animal in the vicinity. A big ass bear. It was amazing. My trip was complete with seeing that bear. That’s all I wanted to see while we were here. We are getting bored with the bison. They are everywhere, they are cool, but now we are old pros and every time we see a bison, we’re like, “Oh, there’s another bison, big deal!”

The second best thing about yesterday was my lobster ravioli for dinner. Hahah. It was fabulous. Then also were my appletinis and coffee with baileys’ we had after dinner.

Bad part of yesterday—Mr. Manic told me to quit “barking orders.” What an asshole. Does he know why I’m barking orders? It’s because he’s freaking trekking ahead oblivious to the fact that our son is bawling his head off scared out of his mind because the wind is whipping around and he’s afraid we’re going to fall off this freaking huge ass mountain and he’s crying, “I don’t want you to fall off the mountain!” And then I am barking orders because it’s hailing up on that mountain and he had all the ponchos. And we needed the ponchos. So, yeah, I am barking orders. Now I’M AT THEPOINT WHERE I WISH I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING, LET HIM FIGURE THIS Shit out. I did not mean to make all those cap letters, that was a mistake, and by the way, I forgot what I was going to say because we are driving and there was a sign that it was grizzly territory so I wanted to look outside to see if I could see a bear. No bear. Oh but just now I THINk we saw a couple black bears up there really high but we are driving so am not sure.

Anyway, this is a total ramble and when I get to an internet connection, I will post this as is. And now my kids are talking about boners in the car because Tukey is apparently excited about going white water rafting in a couple of days.