Yellowstone Road Trip 2012

Yellowstone National Park

 John and I have wanted to see Yellowstone for a few years now. We have a cabin up at Bear Lake, Utah that is only 2 1/2 hours from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a stone's throw from Yellowstone's South end.

So we got a hotel and booked a river rafting trip for the week I got out of school and then we FLEW THE COOP! Can you say R-O-A-D----T-R-I-P? wOO hOO! This was an important road trip for us.

I loved this old barn selling fireworks in Afton, Wyoming as we drove through....

You've gotta love an antler bridge, dontcha? Small towns are so quaint! 

First stop...Jackson Hole, Wyoming....a very artsy, museum filled TOURIST TOWN!!!

But just look at all these fun stores!  Life sized animals amongst the kitchy doo dads.

This gift shop looks like Animal Kingdom!  

Would you buy this zebra for one of your home's walls? Na...me neither....it's kinda cool tho!

This was not a real buck, it was just a stuffed one they put in the store entryway...so fun!

My favorite store in Jackson Hole had lots of geodes like these, shiny rock balls and a really beautiful table made out of a giant piece of petrified wood!  I wanted it bad till I saw the price tag....$250,000.   Yes that is thousands. mmhmmm....moving on....

Beauty everywhere...I love these kinds of shops....Knick Knacks from Nature! Cool! 

Well you just gotta get a ride on the Jackson Stage Coach, now don't ya?  Yeah this horse was gettin' frisky with me! 

Now you might think I stopped in the Historical Society Museum of Jackson Hole because I'm just interested in history? But I was more interested in finding a bathroom before going river raftin!!

Here we are all decked out to go River Rafting on the Snake River near Yellowstone ! 

You can tell John is NOT super excited about these "roaring river rapids"....hmmm.......too calm for this adventure seeker? 

I thought the splashy ride was JUST RIGHT! But I don't seek adventure....just peace like a river....hey, is that a song? 

I saw a few eagles......cool!

And here is the eagle's nest up high,  and it had 2 little eaglets in it... according to our guide..

(what, did you climb the tree and look inside, dude?)

And just a jog away on a cliff is Tiger Woods place right here....it's a mansion on a cliff....

Tiger Woods place on a cliff overlooking the Snake River near Yellowstone....

Then we saw Harrison Ford's place...Here is his picnic table...our guide had lots of stories on how he rescued some lost Boy Scouts in his bright Yellow Helicopter...pretty cool to be rescued by Indiana Jones, right? He's got 300 acres right here on the Snake River!  How would it be? He bought them for $3 million and now it's worth like $300 mil! Way to go Harry! 

Okay this is more like it.....even when they looked rapidy.....THEY WEREN'T! 

In the square at Jackson Hole, they have a fake shoot out to entice you to go see the melodrama in town....really cute! 

Then it was on to Yellowstone....some  of these buildings were really old and had such neat architecture! 

Had to go see Old Faithful...and this other geyser, I think it is the Beehive Geyser...it was very cool too! 

Here it is exploding at the Old Faithful area....it's just a few hundred yards from Old Faithful....

People were everywhere taking pictures of the geyser.... 

Well then we had to go buy a trinket...I got this funny hat!  Isn't it cute?  I'll wear it when it gets snowy this winter....

Johnny looked all over but decided on a red hoodie....He liked this one that says Jackson Hole....
I secretly also got him a Yellowstone T-shirt with Moose all over it....snicker....John Moose.....

Here he is in his cool hoodie....They had all these other (more manly-man)  colors (brown, navy) but he liked the red one!?!  He does look cute with his little hood up doesn't he?  We are looking at all the cool hot pots. Signs everywhere say, DO NOT JUMP IN!  Yeah, that would not be too fun, jumping into scalding hot water....

As we roamed around the loop at Yellowstone looking at all the places to see, hot pots, geysers, waterfalls, we  kept running into these buffalo...Here is a mama and a brand new baby right at the side of the road!! The scary looking dad was not far off at all! 

He didn't care that we were so close in our car.....I snapped this pic just out the window...and we drove quickly on.....

There must have been a family reunion around the corner...because we saw hundreds of them on this trip....just about 25 in every single big field...it was AMAZING!  

They are really beautiful in their natural habitat....look at all the fallen trees!  Must have been an avalanche in the winter....

Beautiful Buffalo at Yellowstone National Park 

We went on a few hikes and saw some waterfalls....

Such awesome beauty there is in this world!  

This is called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.....very impressive!  

I started crying as I took this picture. My hubs was already a little weepy and I caught on immediately. He has a photo he keeps on his desk of my son Danny and he, taken at this exact spot about 9 years ago when Dan was a 14 or 15 year old teenager on a Scout trip to Yellowstone. His dad came with him on that scout outing (so glad he took that time) and they snapped this photo together.

Danny and Dad in 2003

We were both thinking of that photo as he told me he thought this was where it was taken. That boy died a few years later in a car crash.  We were both thinking of him while I snapped this photo. That's why we both look semi happy in the last pic of this post. We were both kind of melancholy even though we are surrounded by beauty. Isn't that how life is sometimes? We have to remember all the beauty, not take it for granted!

Caught sight of a rainbow in the river's spray... true beauty! 

I'm blowing this picture of Johnny up...I love all the background beauty I caught in this one...Yellowstone at it's VERY BEST! 

I did not realize how big Yellowstone was, nor how much water is inside it...Rivers and lakes and hot pots everywhere! This reminded me of many songs that have been penned about the long and windy road or the  river wide or some troubled waters....life can be this way, can't it?  Sometimes lonely, sometimes unfortunate, sometimes dreary, sometimes unpredictable, oft times beautiful, and we miss that part cuz we get busy and worried.....

Yellowstone is a great mini vacation...! There is a lot of power in beautiful nature that we forget about. It is like Chicken Soup for the Soul to see nature at its awesome best. It renews us for the journey ahead. Weekend Road Trips are the good for the soul. Go on one soon.