Yellowstone Part II

Saturday started out great. The kids slept til 8:30, which was an hour and a half later than Friday. My dad, Jason, and I went out early and found several geocaches around West Yellowstone. We just couldn't let a new state come and go without finding some of the local hides. Everyone was ready for a fun day at the park.

We started out with everyone's version of Yellowstone - Old Faithful. I'll say the the geyser has it's ups and downs, this time it was kind of a downer. As we were waiting for Old Faithful to erupt a park ranger warned us not to get sucked into taking pictures and video of the pre-eruption. So when the geyser started to blow I held off snapping any shots. After a minute I took one shot and I'm glad I did - it was all over 10 seconds later. There weren't any 130 foot sprays, this time Old Faithful barely made it to 70 or so. Still, Kennedy and Alex couldn't look away from the mighty geyser.



We finished up at Old Faithful around 5 pm and there was a decision to make - finish driving the lower loop or drive to Jackson, Wyoming to celebrate Liam's birthday. I argued on the side of the lower loop - the kids could see more animals and we could celebrate in West Yellowstone. My sister wanted the group to go Jackson - a mere 5 hour round trip. Needless to say we went to Jackson. After getting to our stop around 7:30 we ate pizza, gave presents, and turned around for the 3 hour return trip to Montana. I'd like to say that I enjoyed the drive, but I didn't. I wanted to have family unity, so I kept my mouth shut (more or less) - but I will never do that again.

Our trip was over as we drove back to Salt Lake through Idaho. I have always said that I didn't want to have a DVD player in the car, the drive home made me change my mind. I've never had a worse drive with our kids. Kennedy was tired and grumpy, yet she refused to sleep (until we got off at our exit in Holladay). Alex was bored and frustrated at being in his car seat for hour upon hour. Tara and I were both at our breaking points and took turns driving so we could avoid the war zone in the back seat. Let's just say the trip didn't end as we'd hoped, but it was still worth it - kind of....