We have seen many sights. We have taken many pictures. We have driven many miles. We are thankful for one of our children, who is always in a good mood, smiles for every picture, helps when asked, and rarely complains. We are thankful for patience in dealing with the other 2 children who are known to scowl, whine, and stomp, especially prior to the noon hour.
Some highlights of our trip so far:
Eric being obsessed with all the Chinese tourists. They are everywhere. They travel on tour buses in large groups. Eric greets them with a smile and "Ni Hoa", which is Chinese for "hello" (he knows this from conversations with the staff of our favorite Chinese restaurant. Most ignore him. For all I know they aren't even Chinese. One said "hi" back. WOW! They speak English! He couldn't believe it!
Megan losing the ability to walk more than 10' before exhaustion sets in, which is only cured by riding her horse (meaning sitting on Don's shoulders). It is very tragic if she cannot ride her horse.
Jonathan has been granted digital camera privelages, using my old Kodak Easy Share. I think he has taken more pictures than I have. He is even getting better at including people's heads in the picture.
Today we saw Old Faithful. We were so lucky to find a parking spot right away, only have to wait 20 minutes to see it erupt, and find some good deals at the gift shop. By then, we agreed that we were Yellowstoned out, and got the heck out of Dodge. We did a quick zip through the Northeast portion of Grand Teton Natl Park, and are now in Thermopolis, WY. The drive here through the Wind Canyon was stunning-just as beautiful as anything we saw in Yellowstone. The pictures I took in the Grand Tetons were from the van moving at a pace of 45 mph or so.
Our hotel room here is so cool. It has 2 queen beds and bunk beds. The pool.....not so cool. It is freezing cold and has dead bugs floating in it....it's an indoor pool.
We explored Hot Springs State Park instead of swimming. We played on playgrounds # 14 and 15 for the summer. We have now played on playgrounds in 4 different states this summer.
Tomorrow we are off to Mt Rushmore. The boys are very excited, especially Eric. Maybe we will have 2 happy boys????
Playing on the covered wagon
After running through the shooting water fountains
Can you see it?
It was a "small" bear. The mama was spotted a bit up the road at the next traffic jam, which wasn't as bad since not as many people seemed to want to get out of their cars to make a picture of the larger sized creature with larger claws on its paws.
Just finished Day 2 of the Yellowstone trip. The boys and Don got souvenier T-shirts in Red Lodge, which they immediately changed into. We had fun at the Montana Candy Emporium. We went through the Beartooth Highway and the North End of Yellowstone. Towards late afternoon, we were admiring the sights from the car...we were tired and eager to get to our hotel.
Eight years ago, we had these cute little babies. We were rookie parents. They were our guinea pig children. We went through over400 diapers a month. We did not sleep. The laundry was constant. We survived ear infections, PE tube placements, hernia repair, hand-foot and mouth, rota-virus, tonsillectomies.......The double strollers logged hundreds of miles. We filled every square foot of our van on road trips.
