Family Vacation 2002 – Yellowstone

My family's vacation to Yellowstone National Park was our first vacation with our new van. We'd bought it in March and I can't remember if we were planning the vacation before we bought the van, but I know that after we bought the van the vacation became more real. We were excited to go somewhere in a van that was rust free and had air conditioning.

The new van was a 12 passenger van. It had 3 rows of bench seating in the back. Out old van had originally had 3 rows, but the first row had long ago been removed. Usually we'd put all of our camping stuff in that spot and go on our merry way. With the new van we had to figure out where to put everything. We decided to take out the back seat and put all of our stuff in the spot back there. That left 8 seats for the seven of us.

Throughout the trip to and around Yellowstone it became apparent that none of us could sit that close to each other. Billy and Hillary were at an age where they could not be civil to each other if they were sharing the same bench or even close to each other on different benches. I was also at an age where I was annoyed by certain family members and couldn't have them next to me – especially while I drove. We learned a lot about traveling in the new van on this trip. The next year when we when on a three week road trip to Ohio we left the back seat in and also had assigned seating depending on who was the driver.

Our trip to Yellowstone was also the first vacation that I helped drive the van. I'd had my license the summer before, but I'd sworn off driving the temperamental old van. But I loved driving the new one. One the first day of our vacation we got up at 3:00 AM and finished packing the van. Then my mom drove up Parley's canyon to Evenston, Wyoming. We bought a map there (I don't know why we didn't have one earlier) and then I took over as the driver.

I drove on the road that dips back and forth between Utah and Wyoming as it travels North. It was a good drive through farm country until all of a sudden we were in the middle of Jackson WY. That town drove me nuts! One minute I was driving on a nice highway and the next minute I was on a main street. Out of no where tourists started jaywalking in the middle of the road. It was like I'd been instantly transported to the middle of some parking lot. I got very upset and wanted to run over a bunch of the tourons (Tourist + Moron). I've never liked the town of Jackson since. When Brandon and I went to Yellowstone for our first anniversary we only spent an hour and a half in Jackson – and half of that we were napping.

Soon I was driving us through the beautiful scenery of Teton National Park. I was keeping one eye on the amazing mountains and another eye on the road. I think we stopped to eat at Lake Jenny and then my mom took over driving. We drove north for a while and were surprised when we came up to a sign that said “Welcome to Yellowstone” we hadn't realized that Teton National Park joins right up with Yellowstone.

We came in through the South entrance and our plan was to go directly to our campsite at Bridge Bay Campground this would have been a right turn at a fork in the road.. However at the fork my dad told my mom to go left. No one noticed until we saw a sign for Old Faithful. I don't know if my dad just told my mom wrong or if he did it as a surprise for all of all. What I do know is that I was pretty mad. I knew that Old Faithful was nowhere near our campsite and this meant we were doing something that was off the plan.

I did get over my misguided teenage anger enough to get out of the van and enjoy watching Old Faithful erupt. It was raining and so there weren't as many tourist around as there could have been. I was amazed at how high Old Faithful went. I was also impressed by it's regularity.

After we watched Old Faithful we got back in the van and drove to our campsite. My Dad had reserved a campsite a few months before. When we got to the campground we found out that the site only fit one tent. We'd brought two tents so my parents paid for another campsite just a little bit down the road and set up their tent down there.

We had hot dogs for dinner and then we just relaxed around the campsite. Hillary invented a game called “Firewalker.” It involved walking while balancing on the rim of the fire pit while holding onto a rope that was tied to the fire grate. You played it when the fire was still smoking, but not burning. Hillary also had a stick that she pretended was her broom like in Harry Potter. At some point during the week Billy burned the broom and the rest of us never heard the end of it.

The next morning we got up around 8:00. My dad and I made bacon and eggs for breakfast. Everyone else made BLT sandwiches for lunch and tuna sandwiches for dinner. Around 11:00 we were on the road. The first place we stopped was an RV camp where there were showers. We were going to go to church while we were on vacation and we wanted to make sure we smelled good. We didn't take showers this time we just found out how much they would cost.

Then we started driving again. We drove all the way to the northern most part of Yellowstone and saw the petrified tree. The petrified tree has to be one of the biggest disappointments of my life. We drove for probably 3 hours to get there. Then we had to park in a very crowded parking lot. In fact there wasn't even room in the parking lot, we had to parallel park on the road leading to the parking lot. Then we had to walk all the way down to the parking lot and then up a long paved trail. There were people everywhere. There were even tour buses full of people. With all these people all heading to the tree I thought we were going to see something really cool. Instead when we finally got there it was just a trunk shaped rock. You couldn't even get close enough to it to see that it was wood that had been turned into stone. It had to be the biggest waste of time ever. (If you want to see some good petrified wood, the petrified forest in Escalante State Park near Bryce Canyon is really cool. You can actually walk right up to the wood and pick it up if you want- just don't take it home)

After looking at the petrified tree we walked back down the sidewalk, through the parking lot, and down the road to the car. We got in the car again and worked our way back south through the park. There was lots of pretty scenery. We passed the time by playing the license plate game. Through out the weekend we would see a license plate for every state except Hawaii and 4 Canadian provinces. The last four states we found were Connecticutt, Rhode Island, West Virginiaa, and South Carolina. We kept our eyes peeled for those license plates. We would make sure we looked at every car in any parking lot we stopped at. We were so excited when we spotted each of those last states. We wrote the name of each state we saw on the edge of the Yellowstone driving map, and I still have it.

We stopped at the Lower and Upper Waterfalls in the Canyon Village area. We were able to walk down to the Upper Falls and stand right next to the rim. I loved being close to that much moving water. We also stopped at the Sulfur Caldron and the Mud Volcano area. The sulfur caldron stunk, but was neat to see. The mud volcano is really just a bubbly mud pool but next to it is a place called the Dragons Lair where water sloshes around and sounds like a dragon is breathing. The Dragons Lair is one of my favorite parts of Yellowstone.

After that we headed back to camp. We'd been gone all day. We'd had lunch after Canyon Village and Dinner after the Mud Volcano. We'd just stopped at some of the many picnic places along the road. At camp we played around, my dad read to us, and we made s'mores.

Saturday was a lazy day. We slept in and lazily made breakfast. A buffalo walked right through the camping area near the bathrooms. We were all pretty apprehensive about him, and my mom was really scarred. The buffalo walked right by some tents, but didn't bother anyone. I guess he just wanted to see what was going on.

Eventually we decided to go see Old Faithful again after lunch. We had pizza's for lunch. They burned on the bottom, but were still good. Then we went to Old Faithful, or as Billy called it, Old Faithfy. We got there and I guess it had just gone off so we walked around on some trails. When Old Faithful did go off I was standing down wind from it and got sprayed with lots of water. My dad and Hillary sat next to a geyser that went off and blew all over them. We had fun looking at all the other geysers, hot springs, and pools in that area. We wandered over to the Castle geyser There was a huge crowd sitting and standing around it. Someone told us that it was supposed to go off soon. We waited and waited and nothing happened. Eventually we gave up and went to watch Old Faithful go off again. Six years later Brandon and I stopped and ate lunch in front of the Castle Geyser. It went off right in front of us and we were the only ones there.

We drove back to came and had hamburgers for dinner. Then we drove over to Fishing Bridge and used the showers there. They cost 3 dollars for everyone except Billy and Hillary who were free. We also spent some time in the gift shop. I bought a key chain with Old Faithful on it. Last year I found it and turned it into a Christmas Tree Ornament.

The next day was Sunday and so we woke up and got into dresses for church. Then we drove all the way to Gardner, Montana to attend a branch there. I think we doubled the Sacrament Meeting attendance. In Sunday school there were about 3 boys and 1 other girl besides us. Young Women's was held in a tiny room that probably would have been a closet in a regular church building. The members told us that there was a ward or branch closer to our campsite, but we didn't mind. It had been really interested to see what a small branch was like.

On the way back to our campsite we stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs. The brochure made them look really cool, but really they were very boring. The think I remember most about that trip to Mammoth was that I got a splinter in my finger and I spent most of the rest of the time there trying to pull it out with my teeth.

We also stopped at the Norris Geyser Basin. Mom and Dad made it pretty clear that this was not something we would usually do on a Sunday. They wanted all of us to stay in our Sunday clothes. But by the time we pulled up to the Norris parking lot all of us girls had changed into pants. I think we even did it with out seat belts still on.

The Norris Basin was pretty cool. We saw lots of pools and geysers and hot springs as usual. We waited for a long time at another geyser that was supposed to go off at any minute. We might have been able to see that one, but I can't remember. (In subsequent trips to Yellowstone I've followed a policy of: If it goes off while your there then great, but don't waste time waiting for one.) The sulfur smell was really strong and we all ended up getting a little sick to our stomachs. Maybe it was punishment for being there on Sunday.

We drove back to our campsite via the Mud Volcano area and stopped there again. The sulfur smell made us sick there too. Then we went back to our campsite for our last night.

The next day we got up early and packed everything up. Then we drove out of Yellowstone and into Idaho so my family could drop Lindsey and me off at OYA in Rexburg.