This past summer, Alden and I went on our first trip to Yellowstone. We flew into Salt Lake, home of David's favorite basketball team. Because the Jazz are so far away from SC, we had to buy a special monthly cable sport thing so David can watch EVERY game. After checking out the Mormon tabernacle in Salt Lake, we decided to take the scenic route to Northern Yellowstone. For the first 5 hours of the trip, my gps kept telling me to go back to Salt Lake and start over. The trip I told my son would take about 5 hours, took 11.5. Alden kept asking sweetly, in his limited new language, "Mommy, it five now?"I got pulled for speeding at one point. 70 in a 35. I had no idea, I thought I was on some sort of long on-ramp, certainly not a road to a trailer park. The Idaho cop was really nice and gave me directions rather than a ticket.
Scenery though the park that day was lovely. On the other side, we met up with our friends Sandra, KT and Emily and their families at Sandra's cabin. It was so strange to me that I had never seen the meadows and their wildflowers, which are just stunning. All growing up I read about meadows covered in wildflowers, but I had not imagined the scene to be as lovely as it is in person.We got close to a moose and her baby, too close to a bison, saw an eagle and a wolf and a bear and were near enough to almost rub the antler fuzz of a resting elk.
On the way home, we camped. Setting up the tent proved Dave Barry's point that a three person tent means that it takes a minimum of three people to set it up. We were setting up a three person tent with two people who didn't speak the same language, and found ourselves trying to stuff the rotted elastic back into the "super-easy-quick-snap-together" poles. A nice Canadian in a massive motor home provided a roll of packing tape that made it possible to sleep inside that night.
All in all, fantastic trip. I really wish the rest of the family had gone, but I'm not opposed to going again as soon as it gets warm.
