Last week, Kayle, Jason, Julie and I decided to take off on a week long road trip to Yellowstone National Forest in Wyoming. My last chemo treatment hit me pretty hard I wasn't having a very good time and so we just thought, 'Sod it!' and took of on a fun trip! Jason has always wanted to take me and Kayle to Yellowstone, so that was our chosen destination! We have some amazing friends, who recently bought a caravan/ trailer and they offered it up to us so we could camp in the park. (We have the BEST FRIENDS EVER!)
We got all packed up and hit the road nice and early on Saturday morning.
Our first 'just for fun' stop was at this crazy bar/ restaurant/ casino/ shop called '50,000 silver dollars'. The name was quite appropriate because it had a ton of silver dollars on the walls... 65,634 to be exact!! It was fun to walk around and break up the journey a bit!
Our first proper stop was in Missoula, Montana to stay with Jason's Best Man and his wife. We haven't seen them in a while, actually, the last time we saw them was when our church treated us to our amazing Hawaii trip and they just happened to be there at the same time. We had an amazing BBQ with them and got to just sit and chat for ages. It was so nice to see them! We stayed there the night and set off nice and early the following morning to head to Yellowstone!
As we continued out journey, we started to see so many animals... we got out our binoculars (or borrowed binoculars) and started spotting them!
We continued our journey... and finally made it to Yellowstone after a long journey! The first thing we saw when we entered the park was a huge herd of buffalo!
It was so exciting... they were just hanging out by this parking spot so we stopped and took a look... as we were sitting there, some of them decided to just hang out in the road right in front of us and then, eventually, cross over! It was amazing!
We were in absolute awe at the beautiful things that God created in the park...
Our next stop was our campground... we took the trailer and got all checked in and set up and then had to head out to gather some wood!
We took a drive once we were all set up to check out the sights and then had some dinner. We got a nice fire started and decided to cook up our goodies on it!
Once we were done with dinner, we decided to take a walk to check out the Buffalo by the river! While on our walk, we got a little silly with the camera!
Another beautiful shot!
We had a great night in the trailer and had so much fun hanging out by the fire and making Smores!
The following morning, we got up, got ready and headed out to explore the Hot Mud Pools. We started the day in jeans and t-shirts, but had to go back to the trailer to get changed into shorts and flip flops!
It was fun walking around looking at all the bubbling pools and running through the hot gases...
... and posing like proper tourists in front of the geyser!
We also took a drive to the main 'Old Faithful Geyser'. We walked around the shops, got Kayle a few souvenirs, took a look at the geyser exploding into the air and took an amazing, well awaited warm shower!
The following morning the weather took a turn for the worse and rained like crazy so we decided to take a trip into West Yellowstone to get some supplies and a breakfast treat. We managed to get another 'tourist shot' by the Yellowstone sign... we missed it on the way in because we were in the wrong line!
While the weather wasn't the best, we got out our guide book and took a look at things we could do for fun.
We made the decision to head to the North Loop and change campsites. We were originally on the South Loop on the West side in Maddison, but wanted a change so headed out in to the wilderness to the middle of nowhere to Tower. The second campsite was literally in the middle of nowhere... there was no water hook up, no electricity... we were seriously camping. (If you can call camping in a trailer, seriously camping! It was more, luxury camping!)
The first few days in Yellowstone, we only saw Buffalo and Antelope, but as soon as we headed onto the North Loop, we saw so many animals, it was amazing. As we approached our campsite, we saw 3 bears... one of which was a Mama Black Bear who was just chilling by the side of the road! She was literally 6 feet from the truck! I am so glad that we were in Jason's big truck and not my little car!
Right after we saw the Black Bear, a Coyote just strolled across the road in from of the truck... it was amazing! I have never been so excited to see animals and wildlife! Poor Kayle was asleep and so didn't get to see the Coyote...
These beautiful Antelope were everywhere!
We headed out in the evening to Lamar Valley to check out the animals because some fellow campers recommended it. We had an amazing night... we saw more bears, both Black Bears and Grizzly Bears, Elk, Deer and Moose. It was amazing!
The following morning, we got up, had a nice big breakfast, packed some snacks and headed out to find some animals again! It was so fun! We would drive up the main road and find other people who were looking through scopes or binoculars and then stop, ask them what they were looking at and take a look ourselves.
We kept seeing all these Bears... it was so amazing... I keep saying AMAZING, but that is the only way to describe it!
Here is another picture of a the baby Black bear that chilled by our campsite.
We also got to see a Long Horned mountain Sheep just walking down the road. Later on in the day, we saw a pack of about 10 0f them hanging out by the road.
The whole time we were in Yellowstone, there were Buffalo everywhere... and there were so many babies! They were so cute!
We saw this fantastic Grizzly Bear just hanging out on the top of a rock right by the road!
This is the Baby Black Bear that lived by the campsite in Tower. She was always there... guaranteed... just digging in the grass or sleeping!
The only animals that we didn't get to see were the Wolf packs. We went out on our last night to track them down... but unfortunately we kept them by about 5 minutes. But it was the thrill of the chase that was so fun... we would drive to one spot, realise we had just missed them, and then head to another spot and sit and wait... we watched a herd of Elk freak out and act all agitated, so we got excited that the wolves were coming.. we got to meet and talk to so many people about the wolves.. it was so much fun! I am such a nature geek now!
We truly enjoyed our time in Yellowstone and it was such a wonderful experience.
We got all packed up the following morning and begun our journey back home. The sun was shining bright as we packed up!
As we left the park we snapped a shot of this wonderful archway!
We stopped very quickly in Missoula again to say thank you to Drew and Kristina but decided to stay at a hotel in Spokane as it was much closer to home than Montana and we wanted to get the main part of the driving done the first day. Thank goodness for Julie having some reward points!
The closer we got home, the heavier the traffic got... thank goodness we were coming home because the traffic was solid in some places!
Our time away was so much fun and just wonderful! I am so glad that we got to go!
