Yellowstone Day 1

June 23, 2015 – Day 21

Bozeman, MT – Gardiner, MT – Yellowstone NP

80 miles, then 60 miles driving around in the park!

Best Western Mammoth Hot Springs, Rm 224

Happy Birthday Daddy! We celebrated with a little Starbucks this morning. It’s the little things, right? We were on the road early – on our way to the destination highlight of our trip – Yellowstone National Park. Excitement all around. Okay, seriously, only Mom & Dad were excited. I don’t get it.

It was another pretty (and short!) drive and then we were in front of the Theodore Roosevelt Arch, which was the original entrance to the park (north entrance). Unfortunately, we were detoured due to construction, and I didn’t get a good picture. Our first stop was the ranger station at Mammoth Springs so I could get my bearings.

I won’t bore you with a play-by-play of the day, but we hiked quite a bit and took a stagecoach ride. I don’t think I can adequately describe the beauty of this park without sounding cheesy and over-the-top. I’ll let my pictures do the talking.

Random personal observations of family life in the park:

Barrett likes to hike and is quite fast. He and I will do well as fitness partners in the future. If I’m going to hike, I’m going to burn some calories!

Cammy doesn’t like to hike, and whines about it. He’s gotten too heavy for me to carry, so I basically drag him along, which thwarts my workout - but what am I going to do?

Audrey can take the hikes, or leave them. She’ll complain about it, but physically, she can finally hang. Her competitive nature overpowers her laziness, because she’ll be damned if Hunter is going to beat her at anything.

Hunter and Audrey fight a lot. It can be a joy buster. They both have to have the last word and therefore, it never ends.

Hunter has become a surly teenager. It’s sad. He seems quite miserable spending time with us, and very underwhelmed by the scenery. I think there’d have to be a racetrack in the park for him to be happy. We’re doing our best to ignore his sullenness, but next year we may leave him at home.

Rich is totally in his element. My nature guy gets so excited when he sees wildlife. It’s kind of cute. He’s on a mission to see a bear and said he’s not leaving until he does.

Speaking of bears, the park has hundreds of bears and they have warnings everywhere. They also sell bear spray in the stores. Audrey is freaked out. Rich suggested we get some – just in case. Guess how much they charge for a can of bear spray (which I’m sure doesn’t come with a guarantee)? $50! I told Audrey we’d take our chances. Audrey was not too pleased. “You don’t think my life is worth $50?” Uh-oh. I explained that no bear would get between me and one of my babies. And now, I really hope we don’t run into bears.

We spent six hours in the park and only saw a small fraction of it, so the next two days will be long. We checked into our hotel, and I had to endure a litany of complaints about our accommodations. It seems they don’t care for a Best Western. I should have made them sleep in the car. We’re in one room (a “junior suite”), so you can only imagine. For our first night, we’re staying just outside the park, in Gardiner, MT. I booked our rooms too late for us to get inside the park. Big Mistake.

We took Rich out to dinner for his Birthday and our options were limited in this little town of Gardiner. I apologized, but he didn’t care. He got to spend his day in Yellowstone with his family, He said that it was the best birthday ever!

Quotes of the Day (Cammy’s on a roll):

#1 - A gentleman saw Rich pushing our luggage cart, which was expertly loaded, and he commented that Rich must have played Legos when he was a kid.

Cammy: “Oh yeah, Legos run in our family!”

#2 - Cammy was waxing poetic after Rich and Hunter said they were going to get him a cinnamon roll for lunch, instead of a hotdog.

Cammy: “They replaced my hotdog, and won my heart.”

#3 - Finally, when we were descending the terraces at Mammoth Springs, I offered Audrey the rest of my water. She thanked me and said she’d save it until we got to the bottom. Cammy was holding his water bottle, which was more than half full.

Cammy: “I’m going to die before I get to drink all of my water!” – He didn’t care for the uphill climb.