This year, we decided to take a family vacation of our own, and since my brother recently moved to Montana, we decided to combine two trips into one. So we took the kids to Yellowstone for a couple of days, and then headed up north to Billings, Montana for a visit with Dana and Veronica.
The first thing on my mind was surviving a roadtrip with two kids. Fortunately, the new vehicle allowed for more room than my car, so that was a plus. We bought the kids a portable dvd player, which set up between the two front seats. Carter loved it, Kendall didn't really care either way if a movie was playing. And she's still young enough that we pretty much just let her sleep when she wanted to sleep and it didn't mess up the schedule of the day too much.
As soon as we arrived in West Yellowstone, we checked into the hotel, dropped off the luggage, and headed straight into the park. It was nearing golden hour (for you photographers), so I knew I was on borrowed time to get some great shots.
Carter was in charge of the binocs....one of this favorite items.
Sword fighting with sticks. I swear, it doesn't matter where we go, Carter HAS to find a stick.
Yellowstone River
One of the things that really bummed me out was the smoky air quality. It really messed up some of my shots.
Goofballs!
Firehole Falls
See, this shot could have been great with blue skies and the mountains in the background.....but you can hardly even see the mountains. :/
One of the amusing things was the traffic jams. Sometimes we found our own animals, and other times, it was apparent there was something going on. The first time we encountered a full blown jam, it was due to a coyote. Probably smaller than Kya. In fact, we could have just tossed Kya out in the brush and people would have freaked out. We noticed people with Idaho plates didn't stop for "minor" things such as cow elk. Really, we see plenty of those here. Show me some bears!
We also made it down to Old Faithful on the first evening.
Along with the entire population of Japan. We were again the minority - in middle America.
We got a few teasers here and there and finally just decided to head back to town since it was well past dinner time.
As we were walking out to the parking lot, a lady ran up to me and told me not to leave, that it was going to blow in about one minute. So we decided to stick around, but I wasn't going to walk back up to the observation area.
We managed to see a lot of buffalo on the drive back to West Yellowstone. And boy, are they smelly!
I kept the river between the beasts and me.....I hear they can run quite fast if pissed off enough. I didn't want to test my own running agility at that point.
We also saw a HUGE moose. Anyone that knows me, knows I fear moose like crazy. We had one that stalked us (that might be slighty exaggerated) up at the cabin in Boiling Springs as a child. Needless to say, the fear has stuck with me. This guy was across the highway and clear on the other side of a meadow. I'm surprised my big lens was able to get this close.
And this shot is cropped in quite a bit. Carter was quite impressed with the moose.....Eric wanted to shoot it.
We ran into another traffic jam on the way back, and Eric got out to check out the scene. Everyone was focused on a cow elk drinking out of the river, but Eric found another, more impressive elk, up higher.
Kendall had had enough at this point ;)
Clear up on top of a cliff face (though it's hard to see the elk or the height of the cliff in this photo), was a huge elk.
He was clearly keeping watch over his lady friend down at the river. It was kind of a scene out of Bambi actually.
Once we got back to the hotel, we went to the pool, which had an impressive water slide. Eric and Carter went down over and over, and Kendall lounged with me in the hot tub. It was a perfect first day!
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