Sunday, July 31, 2016

Day 5: Moving on to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Words cannot really express how amazing Grand Tetons National Park was.  It was just so awesome and relaxing and EASY and everything you would want out of a vacation.  But it was with mixed feelings that we continued on with our journey.  We stopped to take these pictures of Jackson Lake and the mountains before pushing north into Yellowstone.


I know, right?  Andy was a little grumpy so he was trying to photo bomb us.


But eventually caught up with the wonder of it all as well.


But we continued to head north to Yellowstone.

Looking back Yellowstone is a completely different beast with a different feel.  DEFINITELY more crowded.  The scenery was nice, but just different.  Hotter, more windy roads, more traffic. But still amazing.  And it was a lot bigger.  Because of this, we stopped at the first visitor center we came to in order to talk to a ranger about options.  We were not the only one.  Every other visitor center I have ever been to has been "can I help you?" and this one had like a 15 minute wait.  But after all my research, I did feel it was invaluable to actually talk to someone about my itinerary.  We continued on to the south rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  

Everyone said we would see a lot of wildlife in Yellowstone.  I didn't believe them.  I thought we would see the famous "bear jams" but I was surprised to actually see wildlife.  We thought this was a moose:


But looking at it now, it looks more like an elk.  We saw a lot of elk.  Don't tell the kids we didn't see a moose.  We pulled over to see a bison!  But there were literally bison everywhere.  Here is one that we saw after we parked one time :


We saw a deer jam and I hated to break it to all those folks, but we actually have deer where we live.  Drove right on by that.  We were surprised to see no one stopped at THIS turn off to Yellowstone Lake.

  
Yellowstone Lake didn't make it to our final itinerary but Mark especially was really taken by the views.  See, we left something to do for when we went back.

We were actually staying in the Canyon Campground so visiting the Canyon seemed like a good thing to do our first day.  Because we had to drive in, we expected it to be crowded and ended up getting to the parking area around lunch time.  We then promptly made lunch in the RV.  I love the RV!  The Johnsons and Pennas met us there, but my parents, due to a scheduling issue, were not able to find lodging in Yellowstone so stayed another night in Grand Tetons.  I wasn't all that excited about the canyon, because we had just seen the actual Grand Canyon, but this was still nice.

There are two falls, the upper and lower falls.  Here is Andy at the upper falls which was close to where we parked:


The ranger at the visitor center recommended the rim trail saying that it was paved and "easy".  Well, yes it was paved, but there were some uphills and downhills!  And it was pretty hot.  We hiked to the lower falls at artist point.  Its a reverse group picture!


Both falls together!  And a selfie of me!  


And this is my favorite picture of the trip.  Andy is still grumpy but grinning and bearing it.


 The kids were whiny and we were not looking forward to taking this trail back to the upper falls.  My original itinerary had us on another kid friendly hike.  Brian stepped up at this point and did some research to take this trail back. Again, not suggested by the ranger and everyone we talked to said it was really long.  Brian really pushed it though and we ended up taking the back way to the upper falls.  So glad we took the chance, it was wonderful!


Ended up leaving the heat of the canyon rim and got in the shade a bit.  Saw some different things.  One thing I have never hiked to is a geyser!  It kind of smelled.  But it was different!  


The hike was actually to "Clear Lake"  I wouldn't let the kids put their feet in.  Geysers had heated the water so it was warmer than string lake.


Hiked through a meadow back to the RVs.  This might have been my favorite part of the whole trip.


Had to skirt bison to get back to the RVs (I told you they are everywhere) and headed to the campground.  I was really worried about the accommodations.  Again, wasn't expecting water or electricity, but hadn't heard good things.  I think it helped if you have three RVs all together.  It ended up being another great site for us.  We were surrounded by tall pine trees.  The kids had some room to run and we could just enjoy being outside.


Whew again! 

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