On The Road Again

July 23, 2017--We had been throwing around the idea of leaving Yellowstone early to get the Grand Teton so we could spread out the driving back to Sioux Falls. Bridge Bay was also without electricity, but it was more primitive than Canyon Village. We are not against roughing it, but we had no idea that these sites wouldn't have electric and so we hadn't prepared for it. The lot were not mowed and there wasn't a lot to do at the actual campground. People must use it mainly as a place to sleep, spending their days hiking around Yellowstone. Before we left we decided to do a "quick" hike to the Natural Bridge. There were many points in the hike that we stopped to reevaluate whether or not to push on. We finally came to a couple of women who said it was just around the corner. Yay! It was a cool sight, set up on a hillside with water rushing down. As an added bonus, there was a groundhog chilling in the stream so we got to see some wildlife! Lit...

July 22nd, 2017--Today we were leaving Canyon Village for another campground for the southern loop of Yellowstone. We left our campsite at 9:15pm and the guys drop Michelle and I off with the kids at the Visitor Center, Gift Shop, and Grocery while them dumped the tanks and refilled water. We didn't leave the campground until about 10:30am. The kids knew that at some point today they were going to go swimming in a watering hole heated by springs. Each time we stopped they asked if *this* was where they could swim. Understandably, they weren't happy that we kept stopping at places that weren't a swimming hole. We stopped at Gibbon River, Beryl Geyser (above video and the hottest, at between 188 - 192 degrees), Gibbon Falls, and Terrace Springs. We had lunch and then headed to Firehole Canyon Drive, where the swimming hole awaited us...except RVs were prohibited. This was not going to stop us from getting there. We parked down the road at an overlook and then trek...

July 21st, 2017--We learned from our mistakes, and so on Friday we decided to leave an hour later so we could use the generator at the campsite to have breakfast and make coffee before leaving for the day. Our first task was to hike the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Mark, Michelle, and Kevin figuring it all out. This turned out to be a much bigger job than we realized. By the day's end we logged over 22, 000 steps, and that doesn't tell the whole story of the hike because many of those steps were on steep trails. With little ones in the group we counted this as huge accomplishment! At one point on the hike we came across some osprey nests that were amazingly close to the popular trail. Osprey chick just beneath an overlook on the trail We hiked the North Rim Trail, Red Rock Trail, walked to the falls that we saw when we first came into the park and stopped at Artist's Point, as well as Grandview and Lookout Point trails. Difficult to see, but the ...

July 20, 2017--We left the campground by 8am to get a good jump on the day, having a breakfast of granola bars or Poptarts, but that meant we left before generator time and hadn't had any coffee. There's got to be some place we come across that sells coffee, right? The first stop was Norris Geyser Basin. At first glance, it looks like the earth, minutes after a nuclear bomb goes off--a few trees, but mainly bared rock and pools of water; geysers and steam shooting up and water roiling. But the longer you walk the boardwalk winding in and around the basin you see the little bit of beauty. The colors of the springs are vibrant and even though you expect the water to be mucky (to go along with the sulfur smell), it's as clear as glass--and so deep! (No coffee sold at Norris.) We continued on and stopped at Roaring Mountain. It was ok, but after seeing the cool scene at Norris it kind of paled. The highlight of this stop was when we set up our avatars to pose in front...