Cody, WY

stopped for lunch at a little cafe in Cody, WY, of buffalo bill and Annie Oakley fame. it was a stark transition from the park to come down into the hot red rock landscape.

after lunch, we popped into a miniature wild west museum. fun to look at the exhibit... for about 7 1/2 minutes. after 6 big days of touring, attention spans are waning. it was a bummer to have to pass on the old west town (original buildings and cemetery from the original Cody settlement), but we just didn't have the time.

over lunch, we finally got some of our blog posts uploaded. yay! I also dove into the maps to figure out the plan for the day. I had scheduled to make it to the badlands to camp, but had totally underestimated how long it would take to cross Wyoming! made a quick decision to haul to SD and stay in a hotel so we could hit mt. Rushmore and the badlands with fresh energy in the am. this plan was met with rave reviews for the opportunity to shower after 3 days of camping. it was the promise of the pool with a water slide that kept the sanity for the long car ride!!

leaving Yellowstone...

can't believe it is already day 7 of our trip! we packed up our camp this am, and were on the road around 9:30am. took us a few hours to cross through and drive out of Yellowstone over the gorgeous mountain pass to the east entrance. Yellowstone is truly an amazing, diverse and enormous park. we barely scratched the surface in two full days. I left looking forward to the next time I return to continue exploring!

night three camping

again, we got back to the campground tired and saturated. there were spotty rain showers throughout the day, but cleared up as we got back to the tent.

we made another delicious dinner of cucumber, tomato, pepper salad, with scampi pasta and sausages. yum! christina is becoming quite a cooking helper. she chopped most of the veggies for the salad on her own. all 10 fingers accounted for. it was auntie robin who got a little cut with the sharp knife. ha.

we wound down the evening sitting by the lake for a bit, then snuggled up in the mosquito-free tent and watched the Yellowstone video before bed.

another furry addition to the trip

auntie robin is a sucker for a happy co-pilot. all the park stores were showing a cute fuzzy buffalo, the original one Christina fell in love with. after many park gift shops, we left the last one with a park membership (donation), and a "free" buffalo for Christina and Yellowstone video for me.

I must say, the buffalos are happy traveling companions, and the new "buffalo sauce" seems to get along quite well with "buffalo wings". ;)

postcard queen!

christina has kept quite busy in the car writing out postcards to share her adventures with all her friends and family. we dropped another 20 into the mail on Sunday! hope y'all are enjoying receiving them.

auntie robin has written out 2 so far. so far behind, but loving passing on my favorite travel tradition to Christina! :)

animal sightings

driving around Yellowstone is full of spontaneous animal sightings. I think these were some of Christina's favorite sights! throughout this second day in the park, we saw white pelicans, more mule deer, big buck elk with huge antlers, a ton of buffalo, and we even saw a grizzly bear off in the distance across a river. we have a lot of pics of these on the "good camera" that we will need to post at a later date!

Christina is developing quite a keen eye for spotting animals, as well as photographing them! auntie robin is just happy that she volunteers to carry the big camera all the time. ;)

the landscape of the park changes so much as you drive through. we saw a lot of wildlife out on these green plaines.

sulphur cauldron, dragons mouth and mud volcano

we meandered our way back towards camp, making a few more stops to see some of the geothermal features. the sulphur cauldrons were bubbling awesomeness, with a buffalo chillin nearby. the dragons mouth cave was cool... it steamed and hissed, and made growling noises. and the mud volcano was a gurgling mud pool spitting.

more views of the falls and canyon

from the amazing lower falls, we drive around the edge of the canyon to several view points, and upper falls. each spot was more amazing than the last.

brink of lower falls

we started our second day in yellowstone by heading up to yellowstone lake and the grand canyon of yellowstone. after a quick lunch picnic we headed out for a hike down to the brink of lower falls. the trail descended 650 over 3/8 of a mile. when we got down there it was an amazing standing over the falls and looking over the canyon. then we had to hike back up. christina was so pooped by the time we reached the top.

totally wiped out!

by the time we got back to camp, it was almost 7pm and we were totally wiped out!

we made a super yummy dinner of broccoli cheddar soup with Italian sausages, and gobbled it down. after we did our clean-up, we had some time to sit and relax by the lake, and play a few games of cards before bed.

more geothermal features

we were pretty beat from our explorations around old faithful, but there was more to see. we continued north, and drove by some more awesome features, and made a few stops to do quick walks. the sights just got more and more amazing!

we saw [excelsior??], great prismatic, firepot road, and ended at the paint pot mud pits.

buffalo wings

no visit to the park would be complete without a visit to the gift shop... where Christina fell in love with the fuzzy stuffed buffalo, who has now joined our roadtrip. ;) he proudly answers to the name "buffalo wings"

walked a long way!

we had walked quite a ways, and saturated with sights and sounds, we had a quick snack break and headed back. along the way, we saw another huge geyser exploding in the distance, but the real treat if the days was our first buffalo sighting in the fields. it was such an exciting treat, and we got many pics on the good camera, but forgot to snap an iPhone pic. luckily, there was another one napping right by the visitors center!

our feet were super tired by the time we made it back, but it was an exciting walk!

some favorites

2 of our favorite features were grotto, and morning glory

more bubbles, steam & spurts

geysers, hot springs, and tons of other amazing features!

as we walked the path, each feature was more amazing than the last, and we both had so many Ooohhhhhh's and Awwwhhhh's! things were bubbling, steaming, spurting and blooming with color in every direction! like nothing either of us had ever imagined in our lives...

old faithful

just as we were pulling into the parking lots for old faithful, the rain clouds started to roll in. we planned to spend a few hours exploring the area, so we packed up the day bag with lunch fixins, snacks, water, cameras, etc... and just as we started to walk it started to lightly rain. on went the raincoats, and we carried on. we got to the old faithful benches as they were starting to fill, but found front row seats since the rain scared some people back to the trees. we only had to wait 10 min for the geyser to erupt. it was really cool to see, and Christina was super excited because she had never heard of old faithful and geysers.

after a quick pb&j sandwich, we set off on the walking path to explore the rest of the steamy features!

muel deer

didn't take long before we encountered our first Yellowstone nature stop... cars randomly parked on both sides of the road, and tourists with cameras lining the streets. can't beat em, join em!

jumped out of the car, and spent some time watching 4-5 muel deer grazing. christina was really excited about the animals!!

settling in in Yellowstone

I was a little stressed about finding "first come" camping in Yellowstone. our timing put us here on a Saturday morning in July, at the height of tourist season. checked the board and talked to the ranger when we came in, and all the big campgrounds were already booked. the ones that weren't were in opposite sides if the park. had to make a decision about where to go. thought I would head to the central area on the western side, but made a quick decision passing the first campground, pulled in and found a nice spot. no need to spend half our day searching for camping! set up for two nights, and now we were off to explore stress free! :)

at last! wyoming

at last we arrived in wyoming. exciting!!!