Yellowstone

The girls and I left Billings early Sunday morning to head into Yellowstone for the day! 

We drove through the park last year on our way home from Bear Lake, but we literally just drove through. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind- haha! So this year I decided to take the girls by myself!

We went through Red Lodge, MT through Beartooth Pass. I had no idea the drive I was getting myself into, but it was pretty amazing! You basically drive straight up a mountain- like 12,000 ft, just up a ton of switch backs that keep going higher, and higher, and higher, and higher...  you get the idea. Big cliffs off the side of the narrow roads! But such an amazing view at the top! I'm sad I don't have more pictures of the drive, but alas, I was driving and thought it best to keep us all alive! 

 I was so confused when we kept going higher and higher and it started snowing, super dense clouds, and then we came upon cars with skiers getting out, and then a ski lift! The Beartooth Summer ski area looked pretty sweet! Too bad we didn't have our skis! ;-)

Then we made it into Yellowstone! Lucy was so cute and started counting how many animals we saw, it started with 5 deer, 3 birds, 2 buffalo.... and then she lost count on the buffalo. ;-) The girls had so much fun trying to spot them, and then spotting them by the hundreds! And of course they loved the baby buffalo.

We decided to drive through Beartooth Pass so we could go see Tower Falls, and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone!

Lucy's poses. I love her!

The girls had so much fun exploring all day and checking out all of the different places we stopped. Yellowstone is pretty amazing!

They can be pretty dang cute sometimes!

After another hour or so in the car we finally made it to Old Faithful! The girls had kept hearing about geysers and were so excited to see one! They were so funny waiting to see it. Lucy kept trying to balance on everything and as the crowd gathered she kept getting super close to the edge of the boardwalk. (Don't worry- no geysers underneath, just rocks!) I kept telling her that it probably wasn't such a good idea to play by there, and that she would probably fall. The crowd continued to grow, and of course she just kept on going! Then of course she tanked it and fell the couple feet down. It was pretty hilarious- all of the people around us gasped and were shocked! I'm sure they were all thinking how awesome of a mother I am! She was fine, but it was pretty hilarious.

I was trying to tell the girls that when the geyser went off to stand in front of it so I could take their picture and send it to their dad, and Clara was ready to go!

Before, and after!

I really love these two.

After we saw the geyser go off we had some dinner and then set off exploring the other smaller geysers around it.

It was just a little rainy so we had the place to ourselves.

While we were walking the path back behind Old Faithful it erupted again! 

It's seriously such an amazingly beautiful place. I wish we had a few days!

It was such a perfect day! We headed out of the park pretty late, just before dark. On our way out we saw a huge herd of Elk and pulled over to see them! Up ahead on the other side of the road I thought I saw a wolf, but it ducked back into the trees right away! Dangit, but soon after the wolf walked right back up and had this animal in his mouth! It was crazy! We were the first car to see it and it just walked right along the road, went back into the bushes and tore the animal apart to eat it. The girls thought it was AWESOME! We were all so excited to see a wolf!

It was such a fun way to end our visit! We headed through the amazing Teton National Park into Jackson, then over Teton Pass into Victor, Idaho! We stayed with one of my dearest friends- Celeste, for a couple days! We had so much fun! Post to come!