Yellowstone National Park 2010

Warning: Long post with lots of pictures

Last weekend we had the chance to get out of town and go on a short trip to Yellowstone. My sister-in-law next door has had a trip planned for quite some time and they told us that they wouldn't mind if we tagged along. So I got online and booked us a campsite and off we went. It was wonderful to get out of town. I've been dying for the camping season and this trip just made me want it more. 

Yellowstone is about a 5 + hour drive from Salt Lake. We left on a Thursday night hoping to make it to Idaho falls before it was to late since we didn't know how Mads would do sleeping in the trailer for the first time this year. We planned to camp out in the Walmart parking lot there and then make the rest of the trip in the morning. This was so far the longest car trip our little munchkin has taken and can I tell you... it went GREAT! She didn't cry one single time. She sat in the truck and when she wasn't sleeping she was either counting all the tractors on the road (Utah and Idaho are famous for their summer road construction) , or counting the under passes that we went under. She was such a trooper we were so proud! We ended up passing up Idaho falls and went on to Rexburg for the night. We got up the the next morning and made the rest of the trip to Island park where we were camping and to meet up with the other Readings.

After we got settled, we headed for the National Park. Yellowstone is gorgeous! We've both been numerous times and it's always a favorite.

Here are some pictures of our trip.

We rode in Michael and Chrisi's car and Mads got to sit next to her Nat. They love each other so much, but it was funny because with all the driving we did around the park, they started acting like siblings and would tease each other and get mad at something the other would do. They were both a little sleep deprived on this trip.

Maddie liked to push Natalie around in her stroller.

Here she is by one of the board walk hot pots. She was actually really good about wearing her harness. She normally fights it, but it was not an option on this trip with all the hot pots and people about, so she dealt with it. She was actually really scared of the steam that came off some of the hotter ones and would make us hold her as we walked by them.

Me and Mads by one of the pretty hot pots.

You just can't go to Yellowstone and not see Old Faithful!

We hiked (if you can call it that) to Lone Star Geyser on Friday afternoon. It's between a mile and a half to two mile walk each way. Maddie walked almost all the way there!

Her nap was way past due and she finally relented to riding in her back pack, but only if Aunt Christi carried her. She was soon asleep and Jeffrey took the back pack over to give poor Aunt Christi's back a break.

Here are the daddies (brothers) with their sleeping babies.

Finally here! I was super tired too. I'm not used to so much physical activity these days with the pregnancy and all, and it really wore me out!

When we got there, we had another couple hours until the eruption on Lone Star. We'd all decided we didn't walk all that way for nothing, so we sat back and relaxed until the big show.

We made a real camper out if her. She was in her element!

This is Lone Star on it's miner eruption. We had to wait another 1/2 hour after this to see the real show.

Here is the grand finale. It was really cool to see and I'm so glad we waited. This geyser is the next largest in this part of the park after Old Faithful. It was neat being able to see it up close without a zillion people in front of you. I think there were only 4 other people there to witness it, besides our group.

This post is getting really long, so I'm going to continue it on a new post.