Trip to the Cabin

Wednesday, July 20 – We woke up early at 5:00 a.m. and headed to the cabin on Monroe mountain. Everyone was surprised to see us at 10:30 in the morning. I think we were probably the first ones to ever make it to the cabin at a decent time. Let alone before noon. Growing up we were lucky to make it to the cabin by midnight. Those that were at the cabin were Mom & Dad, Shanna and her kids, Jarom & Dakota, Spencer, Dylan, cousin Melvin and a few of his grandkids.  Our family pitched tents up on the hill and had our own little camp. Wednesday we just hung around and visited. Thursday after breakfast we went to Barney lake and the boys fished while we watched and entertained kids on the bank. The boys caught a few pretty decent fish. Thursday night after dinner Eric and I went for a little drive to see if we could see some elk. We saw a couple different groups of cows and calves, but no bulls. Kind of disappointing since a few years ago you could drive around and see a ton of really nice bulls. Friday we got up, ate breakfast, and then packed up camp. It was a quick trip, but nice to go to the cabin. We left about noon. Just as we were entering Richfield from coming off the mountain we got in an accident. Eric wasn’t able to stop when a car suddenly stopped at a stop light. The other vehicle driver made the comment that the light went funny and all of sudden changed red. He was able to stop, but in our big truck we just couldn’t stop. There was quite a bit of damage to both vehicles, but we were all safe and we were grateful for that. We were still able to drive home so that was nice. Eric was very devastated to wreck his new truck (for us). But what do you do.  

Trip to Yellowstone

Saturday, July 16^th we packed up and headed to Yellowstone. This was our first long trip with the trailer. I was a little nervous, but Eric did great pulling it. We arrived at Henry’s Lake, just outside West Yellowstone, at about 2:30. Jarom and Launa had car problems so were going to arrive a little bit later, so we decided to help them out and set up their tent. It was really windy. Try wrestling a tent in the wind. I’m sure it was quite humorous. After getting camp and the tent set up with drove to Earthquake Lake, which is about 20 miles from Henry’s Lake. It is a lake that was created after an earthquake in 1959. It was amazing. There are still dead trees coming up from the bottom of the lake. There was also a beautiful waterfall across the street from the lake.

We arrived back at camp and got a message from Kyle and Misty that they had blown a tire and tore up their trailer so now they were running behind a bit. We eventually all arrived safely and then cooked dinner.

Sunday, we got up early at 5:00 and left camp by 5:30 to head into the park thinking if we left early we would see more animals. We didn’t see too many which was kind of disappointing. We did the Mammoth loop. Once we reached Mammoth we decided to head towards the northeast entrance and found a spot along the way to stop and have lunch. Then we turned around and headed back to Mammoth and had ice cream. Then we continued on our loop. We saw lots of buffalo, two black bear, elk, and a few deer. Yellowstone is very beautiful. I had fun taking lots of pictures. We ended up driving 200 miles and 12 hours on the road. We were all exhausted by the time we got back to camp.

Monday, we didn’t get up quite so early. We went to the Grizzly & Wolf center in West Yellowstone. That was fun to see the wolves and bears up close. The wolves did a howling chat that was amazing. We spent a little over an hour at the center and then helped Jarom changed the brakes on his car in the parking lot. We entered the park around 11:00. We decided to do the Old Faithful loop. We made several stops along the way. Went on a two mile hike up Biscuit Basin and then to Old Faithful. We stopped in the gift shop at Old Faithful and the kids got to pick some treasures.  Then we were on the road to finish the loop. Towards the end of the loop we saw a grizzly and two cubs. We spent probably close to an hour watching the bears. Eric then said his trip was complete. He just really wanted to see a grizzly. It was fun to watch them play around in the field.  Again, we drove about 200 miles and 12 hours on the road.

We had a great time in Yellowstone and can’t wait to go back again.

Tuesday, we packed up and before we headed home we went to West Yellowstone and walked around the shops for a little bit and then headed back home. We got home about 4:30 Tuesday afternoon. Then we did laundry and repacked to head to the cabin.  Sometimes we need a vacation from a vacation.