National Parks Vacation Part 1

We decided to attempt a vacation despite the pandemic.  Our original trip to the west coast was cancelled, but Troy put together another trip that would still let us visit a bunch of National Parks and use Teresa's 4th grade privileges!

We began the trip with a visit to family.  We stayed first with Susie.  Highlights of her house were playing in the rain and the thousands of tiny frogs that are in her front yard!  Next we spent a night with my mom.  We enjoyed some Ting-a-ling bingo, and Life stories game.  We stopped down by the lake to sprinkle some water on Timothy in honor of his baptism day.  And we made a stop at Dan and Krista's new house.  We shared cake for Timothy's baptism and the kids got to swim in the hot tub!

Then we had a long day of driving to get to Dickinson, North Dakota.  We stayed in a hotel we had been to before and it rewarded the kids well since the pool was a bit of a water park.  At least it had a water slide and some of those lily pad climbers across the pool.

The next day we drove to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  We saw some Bison and drove by some prairie dog towns that the kids loved.  We did a couple of short hikes to see some of the landscape.  Before we left town, we stopped in Medora for some ice cream.  Timothy also bought a pocket knife in a tourist shop.

We spent the afternoon driving to Billings, Montana.  Just before hitting Billings, we stopped to see Pompey's Pillar. This is a 200 foot pillar of sandstone that has things carved into it from times past.  One famous thing is the signature of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition from 1806.  We only saw the replica in the picture below as the walkway around the the pillar was closed for repair.

Perhaps more importantly at this stop, however, was the sighting of marmots!  Teresa wanted to see lots of wildlife!

The Com'on Inn in Billings MT was probably the favorite hotel of the trip.  It had 5 hot tubs surrounding this fancy fish pond area in addition to a nice pool.  We even had a balcony room overlooking the fish pond.  There kids were ready to give up on vacation and stay here for two weeks!

The next morning we were off to Yellowstone.  First we had to fill up our tires as we would learn that the driver side had a slow leak.  (Eventually in Cody, WY we would have this fixed.)  Thankfully the tires gave us no problem as we crossed an amazing mountain pass.  We kept winding up and up the mountain until we hit 10,00 ft. Teresa and Troy loved it.  I was a little nervous and I don't know about Timothy.  At one point we stopped to take pictures in the snow that remained along the sides of the road!  (I remember doing this on my trip to Colorado with my parents!)

We eventually made it to Yellowstone entering through the Northeast entrance.  That took us into Lamar Valley which is known for its wildlife.  It took awhile, but we saw lots of bison, a few elk, pronghorns, prairie dogs and an osprey nest.  We stopped at Mammoth Springs and were greeted with some very close views of elk!  They were right around all the buildings and visitor center.  We also did a couple of short walks to see some hot springs areas.  It was pretty, but busy with people, so we did not linger long.

We made our way through the rest of the park to West Yellowstone, WY where we would stay two nights.  We stayed at the 3 Bears Lodge.  This was one of my favorite places.  The town was quaint and touristy.  The Lodge had a neat history and had the best cinnamon rolls for breakfast!  The kids might not have liked the outdoor pool, but they still swam!  West Yellowstone was also the place I had one of my favorite dinners...pizza!

The next day we headed out for our first real hike at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  We hiked right along the river and saw some amazing waterfalls!  It was not too strenuous of a hike, but it tested Timothy and Teresa.  It ended up being about a 4.7 mile hike in all.  We did not make it quite to the viewpoint because we did not want our kids miserable!  I had to motivate them some with jellybeans.

We tried to get to the viewpoint by driving, but after we parked a big built of lightning struck, thunder crashed and rain poured.  It was short lived, but we left that area and went to Canyon Village to have our lunch.  We also looked in the gift shops here and the kids each picked something out for friends.

We tried another hike after lunch, but it was rainy and there was no parking, so we drove on stopping at Artist's Paint-pots instead.  This was just a mile hike to see some small geysers and thermal pools.  They were neat to see.

Then it was back to the hotel for the afternoon and evening.  We did a little shopping.  Timothy bought a Tik Tok sweatshirt.  Teresa picked out a Yellowstone sweatshirt and I did too.  We got some take out dinner and then walked back into the downtown for some ice cream.  And of course swimming after dinner as usual.  Even in the chilly outdoor pool!!