Yellowstone 2021: Day 5 - Last few sights and heading home

And here we come to the end of our wonderful 5 days in Yellowstone. We would have loved to have another week in the park, but I'm glad that we were able to find a time where we could get away for 5 days. 

This was Tuesday morning and the park had visibly emptied by the end of the Holiday on Monday. I wasn't too worried about crowds on this day.  Also we were in no real hurry to leave the park so we took our time getting up and packing in the morning.   Here's a picture of Brandon packing the Honda. My camera lens was fogging up from the early morning air so everything is a little hazy.  Honestly, this is kind of a good representation of how all my memories of Yellowstone look. 

It was quite the job to get everything packed.  On our way too Yellowstone the car had been packed so tightly that we'd had to fold down half of the third row seating. That meant Veronica had been up in the middle row sandwiched between Charlotte and Lydia. We were hoping to leave the third row up on the drive home. We'd eaten through the giant bag of food we'd had to bring with us.  With that bag out of the way we could, in theory, fit everything in the car without folding down the seat.  But it would still be a tight fit. 

I asked the girls, "would you rather sit with all three of you in the middle seat or would you rather have stuff packed around you?"  They all agreed they'd rather have stuff packed around them.  So I was cramming as much stuff as possible into the car while Brandon was cramming as much stuff as possible into the "hat." 

There were some things that helped us make extra room.  Like I said, we'd eaten through most of our food so we didn't have to make room for that.  We also decided that the air mattress that Derrick and Veronica had been sharing wasn't worth taking home.  It had a hidden leak somewhere and I'd had to pump it up every night before bed. So that went into the campground dumpster.

Here's everyone working to pack up.  Charlotte was sitting on top of the Honda "supervising."

Lydia had bonded with a stick and was very sad that I wouldn't let her take it home.  I told her, "even if I wanted to bring that sick home we literally don't have room for it."  She was (mostly) content with taking a picture with her stick so she could always remember it. 

The stick did come in handy with getting stubborn stakes out of the ground. Lydia figured out that she could slide the stick through the stake's string and then she and Derrick pulled up together.  The stake popped right out. 

Soon we had the Honda packed and it was time to get going.  We stopped to take a picture of the bathroom. These are the kinds of pictures I always wish I had when I'm working on my travel blog. See this is what the bathroom looked like.  It had flushing toilets and a power outlet that I'd plug my camera battery into when I was brushing my teeth. 

The night before we'd promised the kids that we'd go to the gift shops in Canyon Village and let them pick out souvenirs. Our first stop was the Visitor Center.  It has a display about the Yellowstone Hotspot.  I took this picture that shows that the Hot Spot used to be under Twin Falls.  I knew that, but I was kind of doubting myself about that. 

Then we walked over the the General Store and looked at the gift shop there.  Charlotte joked that she wanted to buy this display bison.

Most of the kids found what they wanted at the General Store gift shop. But Charlotte wanted something she saw at the Xanterra gift shop.  So she and I went over there to get it.  Then we came back and had all the kids pose with their souvenirs. Veronica got a Moose (which she named Buckle), Derrick got a Volcano making kit, Lydia got a wolf, and Charlotte got a bear. 

I also bought some pictures to display in my office at work, a fridge magnet, and I bought Brandon a DVD about Yellowstone. 

We normally aren't much of a souvenir family, but Yellowstone is different for us.  Also, and this is a big deal, this visit took place at the beginning of the best financial situation we'd ever been in. Brandon and I were days away from signing the loan documents to refinance our mortgage. The refi would be a boon temporarily because we didn't have to make a mortgage payment the next month, and it would be a boon long term because we were paying off most of Brandon's student loan debt. So I was feeling just fine with buying everyone a souvenir. 

We got back into the car and drove away from Canyon Village for the last time on this trip. We will certainly be back again. 

Lydia decided to be brave and take her hat off for a while. The result was hilarious. 

If we'd wanted to get home quickly we could have just back tracked the way we came through West Yellowstone. But we didn't want to do that.  We had all day to get home so we'd planned on taking the slightly longer route through Jackson Hole and then over the Jackson Pass back into Idaho. 

That meant we were driving south on the Lower Grand Loop road for the first time on this trip.  There were several things we'd saved for this last day.  

One was the Hayden Valley.  I've always loved this huge valley. 

Here's Brandon driving through the valley.

 

Here's the road ahead. 

Somewhere in here I got a text message and email from the school telling me Derrick  had been in close contact on Friday with someone who tested positive for COVID. The school doesn't mandate quarantining unless Derrick was showing symptoms. And Derrick didn't have any symptoms. But Brandon and I did have a moment where were were like, "hmm, if we have to quarantine, let's just stop at a store for more supplies and then go camping for another week." We didn't do that though.

Our next stop was the Mud Volcano Geyser Area. Veronica had been looking forward to this all weekend. 

The area is called Mud Volcano, but I call it the Dragon's Lair because of Dragon Mouth Spring. This cave is so cool. Water sloshes around and makes a noise like a dragon huffing.  It's been one of my favorite things in Yellowstone since my very first visit. I was surprised this time to see that part of the cave entrance seemed to have collapsed recently. 

But we still loved it. 

The kids were all adamant that they had done enough hiking the day before, but Brandon and I convinced them to walk up the hill to see the features at the top.

There is a giant hotspring up there.

And another one. (Sorry, I'm in a hurry, so no names right now.)

My favorite is churning cauldron. It's always sloshing around. 

The kids liked looking at it. 

They all grudgingly admitted that maybe it had been worth it to climb up that big hill.

We saw some hot spring run off and one of the kids said it looked like Upper and Lower Falls. 

Then we went back down the hill.  The view was very pretty.

Here's Antler hanging out with her new friend.

We kept driving south and soon were driving by Yellowstone Lake.  We did the little Gull Point drive so we could see the lake a little better.  Derrick kept asking to throw rocks in the water and I told him we'd do it at a different spot. 

Here's the Lake Hotel from a distance.  Maybe one day I'll actually make it over there. 

We continued on our way and then stopped at West Thumb Geyser Basin.  This is one of those places that I didn't realize was cool until we lived in the park. I'd literally always thought it was just another lake viewpoint.  But no, it's a whole thermal area in it's own right. So of course we were going to visit it on this trip. 

There are mud pots.

AND views of the lake. 

The lake is what makes this area special. It's such a pretty blue.  And it helps cool things off on hot days.  I'd been so concerned about cold nights at 8000 feet in Canyon Village that I hadn't given much thought to what the day time weather would be.  The days turned out to be very sunny and while they were never exactly hot, there had been a few afternoons where I'd wished I'd packed shorts. I also sunburned my face because I didn't even think to pack sunscreen. So having cool breezes blowing off the lake was very appreciated. 

The boardwalk takes you right to the edge of the water. There are three hot spring cones that rise out of the water. 

There's also hot pools on the other side of the boardwalk. 

Here's one of the cones. 

And another one. 

Look how pretty this spring is. 

I'd keep thinking I was done with pictures, and then I'd take another. 

The board walk is one big loop and we were about ready to turn to head back to the parking lot when we noticed an Elk on the boardwalk.  We hurried to a spot where we could see her better. To our surprise she started walking out on the thermal area. 

I was able to get some really great pictures. 

And then she DRANK out of the hot spring water.  The kids were all like, "No elk no!"

But she must have been used to it because soon she was walking around nonchalantly again. 

Then we went back to the car. There were some fake animal prints in some of the side walk squares. 

And here's our car.  When we'd been here before, our battery had actually been dead when we made it back to the car.  Some nice people had had a portable jump start box thing and had given us a jump.  Brandon and I were like, "Wow, we need one of those!"  I'm not sure when we bought it, but we had one with us on this whole trip. We never did have to use it. 

On that same day that we needed the jump start we'd also realized the brakes on the Honda needed to be replaced (they'd started grinding on the way home.)  So when we'd got back to camp Brandon had taken the Jeep to West Yellowstone and bought new brake pads.  Then he'd switched them out at our RV spot. 

So on this day I was feeling very grateful for our super reliable Honda that was still running reliably four years later. 

We kept driving south and passed Lewis Falls. I forgot how visible they are from the road. 

After a while we did something that we hadn't done in 6 years.  We left Yellowstone through the South Entrance. When we lived in the park we'd used the West Entrance the most, the East Entrance every time we went to Cody to go to Walmart, and we'd used the North and Northeast Entrance a few times.  But we'd never gone down to the South Entrance.  

The south entrance itself isn't that amazing, but it's what's on the other side that we wanted to see.  Grand Teton National Park is directly south of Yellowstone.  We'd never made it down here when we lived in the park and I'd always felt a little sorry about that.  So we were finally making the trip.  

It started off not that impressive.  A fire had gone through in the last few years and burned a lot of the trees.  

And there was so much smoke in the air from all the California wildfires that the mountains were hard to see.  And there was a drought so the water levels were much lower than I've seen them.  

We stopped at Lake Jackson so Derrick could throw rocks in the water.  This was a place that I'd stopped with my sister Hillary and the kids on our quick trip to Yellowstone 6 years earlier.  It's the location of one of my all time favorite pictures of the kids. 

Things looked a little different this time. The water level was so low we had to trek down to the water and the mountains were nearly invisible. 

Seriously, look how far we'd had to walk to get down to the water.  I never would have make this walk with the kids when they were 4, 4, 3, and 1. We barely made it with them at ages 10, 10, 9, and 7. 

But Derrick didn't mind. He was so excited to finally get to throw rocks in water. This was the last thing on his mental checklist of things to do on this trip.

We stayed at the water for a long time.  The kids had so much fun skipping rocks and wading in the water.  Then we started driving again.  I was feeling a little disappointed about the smoke covered mountains.  The whole reason we'd gone this way was so the kids could see the Tetons.  And yet they couldn't really see them.  However after a while the mountains sort of came into view.   

They never were the majestic sights from my memory.  But we could kind of make them out through the smoke. 

See, sort of there. 

We went into Jackson and did some drive by sight seeing.  Brandon had wanted to get out at the park and look at the antler arches, but non of us were interested in that by the time we got there.  So we just took a picture. 

And here's the town.  Maybe one day we'll come back and window shop, but we were not in the mood to do that now. 

Every other time I've gone this way we always kept going south to eventually make it to Utah.  But that wasn't the plan this time. We turned on a highway that went West.  We got stuck in a little traffic jam and I was worried we'd have bad traffic for a long time, but it didn't last long. 

Soon we were climbing up the road to the mountain pass. And then we dropped down. 

I didn't take many pictures of our drive.  We were all pretty zoned out.  But I did take this picture of an interesting ridge outside Idaho Falls. 

Here's most of us. (Somehow I couldn't get Brandon in the picture.) The kids were happy to have some space between them. 

I was also feeling pretty grateful for our car air-freshener. It had been 5 days since any of us had had a shower.

In Idaho Falls we stopped at a McDonalds and ordered hambergers for everyone. This is one of our favorite end of vacation traditions.  

Then we kept driving.  Those last 2.5 hours weren't that interesting.  We've done that part of the drive many times. The kids watched a movie, I drove, and Brandon chilled out.  

Things did get a little interesting when I was stuck behind a milk truck that was leaking milk.  I kept trying to pass it, but the driver was also swerving. Every time I got close to him, he'd start veering into the left lane. 

Somehow I eventually passed him, but not before the car was covered in Milk.  

We made it back to Twin Falls a little before 10:00.  We made all the kids take baths and then sent them right to bed. Brandon and I unpacked and started laundry.  We also took showers and then went to bed too. 

And that was the end of our wonderful return to Yellowstone.  We'd had such a good trip. It had been good for all our souls.  Brandon told me, "We should do this for Fall Break at least every other year."

So expect many more Yellowstone Adventures. 

Thanks for reading!