The Blood Blog: August 2018

Grand Teton

Grand Teton National Park borders Yellowstone. We got to our walk-in campground early, which was fortunate- it filled up by the end of the day. All the national parks are getting more and more crowded. We drove over to Jenny Lake and paid for a boat shuttle to a trailhead that took us to Hidden Falls. The hike was gorgeous. It was sprinkling off and on, which made all the colors seem more vibrant. There were no bathrooms on the far side of the lake, so Elliot got to experience “adding his own log to the forest.”

It turns out that on the very same day we were there, park rangers became aware of a big fissure in the rock above Hidden Falls. They have closed the popular spot indefinitely due to potential risk of a 100 ft chunk of rock falling down. We must have been one of the last visitors to see it.

Waiting on the dock

Shuttling across Jenny Lake

The water was so green!

My favorite

It's a good pose

Fairy Flowers

Blissfully unaware of the 100 ft rock fissure above us

The kids were super entertained by this log slide

Look at the circumference of that bad boy!

Soup and mosquitoes and friends

The feeeeeeet! Figuring out how to keep Elliot in the tent at bedtime was a recurring challenge. We would tie the zipper closed, but he figured out how to reach his fingers out the tiny gap and untie it. It was a test of our knot skills. It didn't help that it gets dark so late up north.

Yellowstone

Waterton to Yellowstone was one of the longer drives- about 8 hours. We stopped for lunch at Burger King. The kids enjoyed a few fries (they are WAY too picky) and the play area. Aaron asked Robb if comic books are underrated or overrated and somehow that quickly segued into a conversation about anarcho-capitalism.

Aaron drove the whole stretch so that I could work, which would have been great if there had been any reception. I mostly ended up hitting refresh for hours while Annie slept and Elliot watched shows. Elliot definitely slipped into his too much TV monster mode.

I wasn’t super excited about Yellowstone because I had been there at least 3 times before, but I loved it so much this time around. We splurged to stay in the Old Faithful Inn. I’m so glad we did! I had walked into the lobby on a previous visit, but it was different staying there. We stayed two nights in room 245. It had a queen bed and a shared bathroom with showers down the hall. The pack and play and Elliot’s pad and sleeping bag fit easily. In the evenings after the kids were asleep, we hung out in the comfy chairs overlooking the lobby listening to live violin.

Old Faithful Inn: A delightfully loggy building. It is one of the largest log structures in the world.

I absolutely loved the architecture of this building. The posts and railings were made of twisty, knobby wood found locally.

The stairs going to the crows nest, which was blocked off due to those pesky fire restrictions. We did witness a couple jump the barrier and make the climb one night. Once upon a time they would put the musicians up in the crows nest while the lobby below served as a dance floor.

Our room

Love these two pals.

We balanced out our fancy lodging by cooking spam and beans in the parking lot for dinner

Annabelle was too asleep to participate in our geyser pics

The group (minus babies) in front of the tail end of Old Faithful's eruption

We slept in and enjoyed a leisurely Sunday morning. I snuck in a tour of the inn that I greatly enjoyed. We eventually loaded up the cars and drove around the grand loop making occasional stops along the way. Prismatic Springs was significant in that we were able to witness Lakin actually get angry! There was a huge backup of cars trying to park at each of the main sites. We decided we weren't likely to get a spot, so Lakin and I jumped out with the kids while they guys went to go park the vans on the side of the road a ways away then walk back to us. An RV cut the line as we were unloading. Lakin actually yelled at the guy! It was empowering.

Elliot was very impressed with all the geothermic features and loved it when the steam blew on us.

Claire was very much NOT a fan of geothermic features

I don't remember it being this colorful!

Next stop: the lower falls in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Some buffalo. We also spotted elk and a bear. Well, we only kinda sorta saw the bear way off in the trees. We mostly saw the huge traffic jam caused by people trying to see the bear.

This is how Elliot got like 10 splinters in his hands

We picked a somewhat random picnic spot for dinner that ended up being gorgeous. Elliot had passed out asleep in the car and got very upset when I attempted to wake up to eat food, so he missed it.

Colby’s reaction when Aaron picked up his Minecraft book and said “I just wish someone would explain how to play Minecraft to me”

There was a super interesting black sand beach

We didn’t get to play in the water because we had to hurry back to the Old Faithful Lodge for church. We didn’t have enough time to change into our church clothes, which ended up being ok- about half of the very small congregation were in street clothes. Robb passed the sacrament in his Star Wars shirt and shark shorts. I greatly enjoyed hearing testimonies from the small group of people who gathered together on a Sunday evening in Yellowstone.

Glacier and Canada

Glacier National Park is big. We were able to see quite a lot from the Going-to-the-Sun road that twisted up and down the mountains. We crossed the continental divide. Water to the east of the continental divide will end up in the Atlantic Ocean, and water to the west of it will end up in the Pacific.

Waiting for the shuttle to St. Mary Falls

All the kids were endlessly entertained by rocks and sticks.

There had been a forest fire about a decade ago. It was interesting to see the new life thriving around the scorched black trunks of the old forest.

My favorite part of the park was the teal color of the glacial water.

St Marys was super impressive. This picture does not capture how powerfully gushy the waterfall was.

Elliot was very impressed by this large leaf. He carried it for hours so that he could use it to "decorate the Hay's tent."

Trying to hustle the caboose

On the shuttle ride back to our vans, I sat next to a Canadian woman who had been backpacking in Glacier by herself for 4 days. I would never ever want to do that but was impressed by her adventurous spirit.

We loaded up and headed north to Waterton, Canada. This is actually the same town where my Grammie and Papa went on their honeymoon, but Grammie tells me that there was a big flood that knocked out all the old buildings so it is probably quite different now. All the Canadians we encountered did a great job of fulfilling their cheery stereotype.

There was literally no line at the border crossing. That is the Hays in front of us.

If we had to pick one word to describe Waterton, it would be "windy." it was EXCEEDINGLY windy. We had to carefully arrange the camp stove because it kept getting blown out.