6/11/23

Hello happy Sunday! 

More from our trip! 

Tuesday the 6th was our 30th anniversary. Hard to believe we've been married for 30 years. In some ways it seems longer haha. We've had way more of our life together than not. 

We still look the same right haha. Definitely one of our fluffier years. We were both feeling it with the higher elevation! I'd rather not croak soon so it's time to watch what I eat again for awhile. Booooo

Speaking of eating, these free breakfasts in the hotels were AWFUL! I must be spoiled by the ones we go to for my work. The one at this hotel was just plain nastly. I tried having some eggs and fruit but it was all so gross.  Thankfully they had a waffle machine. I put some peanut butter on there to try and get a bit of protein and so I wouldn't be hungry again in a few minutes. 

After breakfast we packed up and in just a couple turns we entered Yellowstone!

We did almost the whole lower park in one day. We started at the West entrance and went up to the Grand Canyon and waterfalls area and then out through the East Entrance. 

I took a million pictures! Just kidding but quite a few. We saw bison almost right away. We had stopped to look at the first little water area when we drove in and then when we were pulling out the bison were coming down the road.

I have a video of them walking right by my car but it says the file is too big. Pretty cool but I kind of felt bad for them having everyone get so excited to see them. At least they weren't behind bars in a zoo. 

in front of Old Faithful while it was going off

This was my favorite in the geyser area. Paint Pots. So cool. 

There are some enormous lodges in the park. If I ever go again I'll try to stay inside the park.

We got stuck in construction traffic for a whole hour inside the park. Talk about annoying. That was on the way to see Old Faithful. You'd think they'd work on that stuff when it's not like NOON when everyone is driving around. 

The waterfalls were so pretty

In the "grand canyon" of Yellowstone

There were so many dead & down trees in some areas. I just looked it up and they were from fires like we thought.  I told Scott the trees look like pick up sticks on the hills.

Our plan after leaving Yellowstone for the night was to drive to Cody. When we were leaving the park we saw some deer and stopped to take pictures of them and the Yellowstone sign.

Don't mind my outfit, we were in and out of the car all day ;)

We left the park and went around the corner and BAM! Traffic. We JUST missed being involved in a mudslide. We were totally freaked out that if we had not stopped for pictures we could have been in the middle of it. Thank God there was a little restaurant/store/lodge between the park and the mudslide.

I ran in real quick and asked if they had any rooms available and TG they did. They also let me use the land line to call the hotel I had had reservations at to cancel. Luckily I had the phone number because I had put the place in my maps and it showed up. There was no service at all on my phone.

Our cabin for the night. We had the left half front :)

Very rustic haha. I would never pick this place since I have an aversion to hotels with old bedspreads that have the pillows tucked in. It worked out fine though!

So glad they had a restaurant too. I told Scott when we got there we had to go eat RIGHT AWAY since it was 8:30 and they closed at 9. They ended up staying open later but we were one of the first to get a seat. 

Dinner was great and it was kind of nice not having to drive any farther for the night.

When we got up in the morning they had cleared one lane to Cody but we didn't go since we had to get to Jackson Hole for our trek home.