After the Smith reunion, we went up to Yellowstone National Park. I never thought I'd survive all the camping involved. Our plan was to camp overnight for 3 nights. That in itself is almost an eternity for my pampered self. I am no pre-madonna...I know...I know...my siblings and stepdad call me "Mrs. Hollywood"....but I'm really not that difficult. Anywho, we ended up leaving a day earlier than anticipated. Here's why....
The first day went really well. We saw a bear 20 minutes after we entered the park, which was totally awesome! I've never seen a bear in the wild. We stopped to see an Elk or dear (are they the same?...just curious) and someone yelled that there was a bear across the river. I liked the fact that the river separated us from the brown beast. That night went very well. It wasn't freezing cold like we thought it would be, but it was quite chilly. I think it was cold to me, since I'm so used to really hot weather. We all slept peacefully....
The second day went well. We went and saw tons of Bison and wild animals throughout the park. It was absolutely amazing...Afterwards, we went to church at the outside amplitheatre of our campsite. It was interesting with everyone dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. I felt a bit strange wearing my sunglasses. After church we started to get our dinner ready and marshmellows roasted. By then I was feeling great...like I could totally do this camping thing. Boohoo...our campfire kept dying. So we ended up having to cook it with the stove. There goes my dutch oven experience. Oh well. The food smelled delicous. So delicous that I thought a bear would come to our campsite. Luckily, no bears paid us a visit for dinner. Then sprinkles started to make their presence. Oh no...great...they stopped. The family finally got to eat their marshmellows since our almost non existent fire turned to coal. Fun Fun Fun....grr...more sprinkles. We cleaned up everything, then the hail started. Yes...hail...I don't camp with hail! We all escaped to the van. Fun huh? Once it died down the temperature dropped. Like realy dropped! I could see my breath cold! We head for our tent and luckily we brought plenty of warm clothes and blankets. I married Mr. Outdoorsman/Perfect...he was smart to put a tarp above our tent. It kept us nice and dry. Thanks babe! By 2am...it started to rain, thunder and lightning. It felt like a bomb went off above us. That's it! We're leaving! Joseph and I start freaking out! Alycia just goes back to sleep. Brent calms us down and we go back to sleep. By morning I head up to the Ranger's station to get the weather update...and they predict the same weather as the night before. Early check-out please! Needless to say, we checkout and do a quick visit to rest of the sites we needed to see at the park. The kids got their Jr. Ranger patches and we took plenty of pictures.
We all had a wonderful time at Yellowstone. It's one of the most amazing National Parks I've ever been to. It's definantly a "must see" wonder. As for camping...I'm still not a fan. We did take showers every single day. They were worth the $3.50/each we ended up paying per day! I hope you enjoy the pictures I scrapbooked. We have tons more pictures, so I just did a condensed version...
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