Yellowstone Part 4

Wednesday was our day to recover a bit and do some fun things around Cody.  Some of us slept in.  I didn’t get up until about 9:15am, and Daniel slept until 11am.  We had eggs and cinnamon rolls from the bakery for breakfast. 

 

Relaxing!

 

The kids watched Lego Batman for about the fourth time (they had watched in the car, too!).   In the afternoon, we went to play mini golf.  Papa won!  Jonny got a hole-in-one on the first hole and he started giving everyone tips, lol!  Emily and I each got one, too. 

 

 

After mini-golf we went to the gunfight show at the Irma Hotel.  It was pretty cheesy but still fun and the boys got to keep some bullets. 

 

The original Irma Hotel (named after Buffalo Bill Cody's daughter), on the main road through Cody

 

With the actors from the gunfight

 

With "Buffalo Bill"

 

As we were leaving, a little girl saw Emily and told her mom, “Mom, that’s Anna from Frozen!”  I didn’t hear it, but Dad said the little girl seemed convinced she was the real Anna.  Emily even gave her a hug.  We had a good laugh over that! 

 

Our cabin was so close to the Irma Hotel that we walked.  This cute little sunroom was in front of a house a few doors down.

 

We ate dinner at Granny’s Restaurant.  The food wasn’t anything special, but it was reasonably priced and I enjoyed my open-faced roast beef sandwich. 

 

After dinner, we went to the Cody Rodeo. 

 

While everyone else found seats, Dad and I watched Daniel and Jonny ride the mechanical bull. 

 

Daniel

 

Jonathan

 

The rodeo was fun.  Not a single rider stayed on a bull for even close to eight seconds, though. 

 

They asked for kids to volunteer to chase the calf and Daniel and Andrew volunteered.  Jonathan thought about it but then turned back around.  Some of the kids took off early so the boys didn’t really have a chance. 

 

After it was over, Andrew, Emily, and Nathaniel all took a turn on the bull.  Andrew hated it.  At some point, each one of the kids got a look on their face like, “What the heck did I get myself into?  This is way harder than it looked!” 

 

After the rodeo, we stopped by Dairy Queen for ice cream and we saw one of the girls who was in the rodeo and is from Tucson. 

We checked out of the cabin on Thursday.  I was up by 5:30am and we drove away by 8:30am.  I thought that was pretty good!  Poor Emily had woken up sick so I did her packing for her and let her rest.  She took some medicine and it helped her quite a bit.  Emily and I rode with Dad.  We stopped at the gas station again on the way out of town, like we always do.  It was pretty full, and Dad had to drive around so he could pull up on the other side.  I asked, “Where’s Michael,” and Dad said, “I don’t know, but it’s every man for himself,” and just then we saw Michael who had just taken our spot!  I laughed and laughed.  Dad wasn’t very amused. 

On the way into the East Entrance, Dad spoke to the lady about the senior pass, and she happily refunded the difference and gave Dad the lifetime senior pass.  We had another pit stop at Fishing Village and then went to the West Thumb Geyser Basin.  It was pretty busy.  We walked around and saw the fishing cone, black pool, abyss pool, etc. 

 

After that we drove to Lewis Lake for our picnic lunch.  There was snow on the ground and we were constantly bothered by the mosquitos.  We ate up most of our food and headed out through the south entrance. 

 

There was a big long line to get out and we were stopped there for a while.  Finally, traffic got moving and they waved us through.  The Grand Tetons were so beautiful!!  When we were at the Buffalo Bill Cody museum, I was talking to this lady who said that we had to stop at the lodge and look at the view.  I thought it was odd that we would stop at a hotel that we weren’t staying at, but we did and I am so glad we did!  The view was breathtaking!  There were tour buses there doing the same thing we were. 

 

View from Jackson Lake Lodge; there was a huge wall of windows to sit and take in the beauty of the mountains

 

Outside at Jackson Lake Lodge

 

We were getting ready to leave and Michael said, “I’ll bet we make it to Rigby by dinnertime.  You know, all we seem to do is drive, eat, and go to the bathroom!”  He’s pretty much right!  I had wanted to take Teton Park Road, but we missed it and took the highway but the drive was still beautiful. 

 

We went through Teton Pass that was a 10% grade!  I enjoyed driving through Jackson, but it was very tourist-y and I’m glad we stayed in Cody.  Not that Cody wasn’t tourist-y, but it was so much better. 

 

We arrived in Rigby by 7pm, checked in to the hotel, and walked to dinner at New Star Chinese restaurant.  After dinner, we went back to the hotel to relax.  Nathaniel, Andrew, and Daniel stayed with Papa across the hall from the rest of us. 

 

The Chinese restaurant was so close that we decided to walk there

 

Tomorrow: Tour of BYU Idaho and Yellowstone Bear World!

Yellowstone Part 3

Horseback riding and river rafting day, in Gardiner, Montana! 

On Tuesday, we were up and on the road by 7:10am.  We stopped to get gas and headed to Yellowstone.  I originally wanted to take the road west out of Canyon Village and then go north, but Emily noticed a sign at the east entrance that said there was construction along that route so we took the road north and then west.  The Northern road was supposed to be the “Serengeti” of Yellowstone, but we didn’t see much at all.  I drove that morning and some of the roads were pretty scary.  One wrong move and it was a long plummet down!  We avoided the construction on the other route (which was super long, we ended up discovering on the way back), but this route did have some construction also.  At one point, we were waiting our turn on the one-lane road and I said, “We’re really high right now, can you feel it?”  Obviously, I meant the elevation, but everyone else had a good laugh about it and teased me for the rest of the day. 

We made it to Gardiner by 11:00am sharp which was perfect because it gave us plenty of time to have lunch at Subway.  We made it to the Flying Pig at 11:50am (we needed to be there by noon) and headed to Hells A Roarin’ Ranch for our horseback riding.  It was supposed to be a one hour ride but I think it was more like an hour and a half.  Jonny was scared at first and was just about to tell me he didn’t want to do it, but just then they called his name and he hopped right on.  I was so proud of him! 

I think we had pretty good luck with our horses overall.  The guides were David, Cole, Bernadette, and Georgia.  David held onto Jonny’s horse and they were at the front the whole time.  Bernadette was the one who took pictures for me.  I was kind of stuck in the middle of all the kids and we were pretty spread out.  Dad was in the back and Michael was in the front so it worked out.  Andrew and Nathaniel both had their horses freak out a little bit when Cole’s horse (he was a little wild and it was his first trail ride--the horse, not the guide, lol) cut in front of them but they were alright. 

The scenery on our ride was so beautiful and the weather was great—about 85 degrees. 

We rode through Gallatin National Forest

 

That's Electric Peak in the background

 

Nathaniel on Pat

 

Me on Pinto Pete and Daniel on Oxbow

 

Andrew on Sandy and Papa on Fiddler

 

Michael on Sasquatch

 

Jonny on Little Britches (how cute is that?? I think that should be Jonny's new nickname) with our guide David

 

Emily on Hickory

 

More beautiful scenery

 

 

My view for most of the ride

 

Michael had a bad experience horseback riding as a kid, but he loved it this time!  So did Jonny!  We ALL did!

 

I was pretty sore and ready for it to be done by the time we made it back.  Jonny says the horseback riding was his favorite part of our vacation.  I drove us back to the Flying Pig (the guys were worried but I think I handled the driving pretty well) and we didn’t get there until about 2:45.  We had to hurry and get dressed in our bathing suits and find wetsuits that fit us.  The water was 45-55 degrees they said.  Our guide’s name was Rob Thomas.  The walk down to the raft was pretty scary but we all made it.  Everyone paddled except for Jonny.  Daniel “rode the bull,” which means he sat on the front of the boat and held on through some big waves.  Emily and then Nathaniel took a turn, too, but he fell off!  It freaked me out a little bit (and Andrew a lot—he screamed!), but they got him back in the raft and he said he was fine.  All of the kids took a turn riding in the front of the raft (on the inside).  Rob later said that we were approaching some Hippopotamus waves and that the kids could “ride the bison,” which meant they would stand on the front of the raft while we spun it around (called the washing machine).  Nathaniel tried it and fell in the raft, then did it again and jumped in the water.  Daniel jumped in too, but I didn’t want him to stand on the front of the boat!  We all felt like the ride ended too soon.  Our guide said he was from Wisconsin, but he was actually pretty knowledgeable about the Mammoth Hot Springs barracks.  We rode a pink bus back to their office and ended up buying the pictures they took of us.  I had decided not to bring my camera on the boat.  I didn't really have a chance to use it, anyway.  Here are some of the ones they got of us at the beginning of the ride. 

 

 

Emily and Nathaniel both said that the rafting was their favorite part of the whole vacation.  We were going to eat dinner at the Iron Horse restaurant but it was really expensive and we wanted to see the Mammoth Hot Springs before we went back so we went there and had snacks to tide us over and walked around the hot springs. 

These guys were just hanging out in the yard next to a private residence, right near the bathrooms where we stopped in the Mammoth Springs area. 

 

Remember how I mentioned the construction on the way back?  We had to wait a good 20 minutes for our turn because it was down to only one lane.  Once we barely got past the construction, we saw this bison in the road.  Everyone was stopped.  I took out my camera to start filming and the bison gave me the spookiest look.  He was looking directly at me as if I were his dinner!  It was freaky!  Look at the way he stares!  I thought he was going to charge at us or something.  Even as he walked by, it was like he was saying, "You're lucky I just ate, lady!"   

Some more cool sightings on our way back

 

 

Michael drove us back to Cody.  We didn’t arrive until about 10:30pm and we had dinner at McDonalds and then went to bed.  The kids were pretty impressed with the "fancy" McDonald's water feature. 

 

Time for some rest!