Yellowstone 2014

Jared and I had been talking about making this trip since we got married and it just so happened that it all came together this summer. However it was not exactly planned out very well with a seven month infant. Let's just say an eight hour car ride was not the best idea when you have a baby strapped in his car seat the whole time. We did take a break every couple of hours but it still wasn't enough for poor Hilton. By the last stretch of our car ride when I went to put him in his car seat he started screaming the instant he saw it. But besides that it was a great trip!

 

Happy to be out of the carseat and in the wide open spaces!

We stayed in a small private little cabin north of North Yellowstone in Pray, Montana. The town is as small as it sounds. But it was just what we needed with it's own little fire pit where I roasted marshmallows and with a cute little deck where we could look out across the valley and hills.

At Patriot Cap

 

At Mammoth Hot Springs-a large crack in the earth's surface caused by a hot super pressurized water spring underground reaching the surface. According to the guide this one has been going on for almost one million years and will probably go on for a couple more million.

At the Artist Paintpoints-literally huge boiling pools of water or mud!

We spent the majority of the first day after we arrived seeing the west half of Yellowstone. We made all the major stops on the way down to West Thumb including Mammoth, Artist Paintpots, Old Faithful and many others. Hilton definitely had the most fun this day I think because we stopped frequently, probably every half hour and took quite a couple hikes so he had to spend less time in the car. We hiked to Artist Paintpots and everyone who walked by us kept commenting on 'how happy of a baby' he was and my response was 'anything to be out of the carseat'. But I do think he enjoyed the smell of the pines and all the amazing new things to see.

 

Random vents of steam became a very common sight as we drove along to our various stops

 

The Old Faithful Lodge

 

Good Old Faithful herself-so much taller than this picture gives justice to!

 

  

The second day we spent seeing the east half of Yellowstone. The only things we did this day was to stop at the Great Yellowstone Falls, specifically we hiked the lower falls-in our flip flops and Hilton in the stroller which wasn't the smartest idea but live and learn, stopped at a field between the falls and Yellowstone Lake because of a huge amount of bison, and Fishing Bridge at Yellowstone Lake. This was a bit rougher of a day for Hilton but still fun. Hilton loved watching the falls, and seeing the bison so close. We got him a stuffed animal buffalo and he slept with it every night during the trip which was adorable!

This pretty two point belongs to a herd of elk just hanging out in the north part of Yellowstone

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

We took Hilton down the lower falls hike in the stroller...not such a great idea.

But he sure enjoyed it! Even though daddy almost died trying to push him back up to the top

 

The Lower falls of Yellowstone

Hilton sure was excited by all the water. p.s. don't judge me that Hilton isn't wearing any pants...he leaked through a couple diapers already by that time and all four I packed for the day were already wet or spit up on

 

We got out of the car to let Hilton see the bison and then they started walking up to the cars...so we got back in the car but it was so cool! They walked within ten feet of the car and were crossing the road and had traffic stopped from both directions for a good fifteen to twenty minutes.

The rest of our trip we went and stayed with some friends in Yellowstone, unfortunately we didn't take any pictures while we were there, I wish we had. It was so nice to see them but once we were on our way home we were definitely happy to know we were going home. All in all it was a great trip and I'm so glad we finally were able to do it, but we will wait a couple years to go back.