Camping in Yellowstone National Park

Our Epic Vacation: Day 5

The end of Day 4 found us all a little bit (a lot) cranky, and crashing for the night in our tent at Yellowstone after going to bed without dinner. I thought I’d better take a picture of our palatial tent that was so good to us on this camping trip. It got us through the crazy thunderstorms the first night and kept us warm, comfy, and dry through it all. I even enjoyed it. I don’t know if I thought I’d ever enjoy tent camping, but there it is.

Breakfast at our campground this morning consisted of fruit, pancakes, and cottage cheese. I am not so sure that the crankiness was slept off, as the girls bickered through all of breakfast. Do you want to know what they were arguing about? Who got to hug their cousin the tightest when they saw her. Yep. I suppose there are worse arguments in the world, but I still rolled my eyes a lot that morning.

After breakfast and packing up the car, we got our passports stamped at West Thumb, which was near where we camped, and then headed off to watch Old Faithful erupt in the daylight hours.  Let me again remind you how freaking LARGE Yellowstone is—on the hour drive to Old Faithful, we saw more wildlife and I think we finally began to uncrankify ourselves. Good thing we had a little bit of protein for breakfast.

Once at Old Faithful, it was fun to call our parents and our friends to have them find us on the live webcam—though it took us a few minutes to figure out where it was! Watching it erupt was definitely much more exciting when we could see it, and very worth the wait.

After watching the geyser, we got our passports stamped at the Old Faithful Visitors Center and did some souvenir shopping. My youngest bought a bison that makes some crazy noise, so we were treated to that while stuck with her in the car for the rest of the day. But at least she kept herself amused.

Before we left the area, we also watched the Beehive geyser erupt, which is just near Old Faithful. I don’t know how “faithful” that one is, but it was certainly cool to see it.

We then drove out of the West Entrance to Yellowstone and stopped for a while to look at the paint pots and the hot springs.  I wish we had had more time in the park, but we really loved what we saw while we were there.

We said good-bye to Yellowstone and were on our way to Utah. Excitement ensued.

I love love love all of the national park passes, campground stickers, and various other ephemera.

My husband is always so good to drive most of the way on our road trips, but he does sometimes get a little stubborn about continuing to drive when he is way too tired. He knows I dislike driving, so he’s really wonderful to not make me do it much. But this day I had to practically force him to let me drive after we stopped for gas in Rexburg, ID. I only drove until Malad, but it was enough for him to get a nice power nap.

And before we knew it, we crossed the border into our homeland! Utah at last! We arrived at my husband’s parents’ house and had time to unload and clean up a bit before we headed to the restaurant to celebrate Mimi’s (that’s my mother-in-law) birthday with the rest of the family. Or, at least, a lot of them.

We ate at Buca di Beppo, a really fun Italian restaurant that I’m sure all of you have heard of before, but I hadn’t. Remember that I live in the middle of nowhere that has no restaurants. It was really good. The best part was being reunited with cousins and aunts and uncles and Mimi and Papa!

After dinner, we stayed up talking with family. And don’t worry, tight hugs were given to ALL the girls by their cousin, they were thrilled to see her and forgot all about their silly argument!  A lovely night—and the best part was we didn’t have to camp!

***End of Day 5***

States visited:

• Wyoming
• Montana
• Idaho
• Utah

Hours driven:

7.5