Yellowstone 2021: Day 1 - Getting there

I've thought of this trip to Yellowstone pretty much ever since we drove away from the park on August 20th four years ago. I've always known we'd go back to visit the park. And I've always wanted to go in the Fall, but getting back turned out to be a little harder than I thought.  

My first wish was to go back in the Fall of 2017, just a few months after moving away.  But this turned out to be kind of impossible.  We needed to focus on jobs and school and turning right around to go back to Yellowstone just wasn't a good idea.

I toyed with the idea of going back in the fall of 2018. We still had the job and school dilemma, but maybe we'd find a weekend we could slip away. Those plans were squashed along with my knee when I was hit by a car at the end of August. Instead of Yellowstone I got to spend my time in physical therapy. 

In 2019 I noticed that the kids got Tuesday as well as Monday off for Labor Day weekend and so I realized this would be a perfect time to go back to Yellowstone.  But we'd just bought a house and money was tight. A road trip was not a good idea. 

In 2020 we were homeschooling and so it would be the perfect time to sneak in a trip to Yellowstone, but the pandemic was still very uncertain and it just didn't seem like a good time to try to plan even a quick trip. Our family vacation to Washington State in June had been fraught with cancelations and closures and I wasn't in the mood to deal with that again. 

But things were feeling more hopeful at the beginning of 2021. The Covid vaccines were available.  I'd had my first dose and so had many other people.  So when the 2021-22 school year calendar came out in February I checked to see what Labor Day looked like.  And again, the kids would have Tuesday off in addition to Monday.  I booked four nights in Yellowstone nearly right away.  Surely by fall things would be completely back to normal, right? 

Right?

Well not so much.  But the park stayed open and our reservations never got cancelled, so that was a good thing. 

I was hopeful for this trip, but also realistic.  I was reluctant to really plan anything for the trip because I was afraid it would be cancelled. 

Even up to a week before the trip I still wasn't sure it would really happen.  Finally, the Saturday before the trip Brandon and I sat down and made a list of the places we wanted to make sure to see in Yellowstone.  We also made a (smaller) list of places we didn't care to stop. We also made our food menu and equipment list. 

Then Lydia got sick with a nasty cold and I had her tested for COVID. I was worried she'd test positive and effectively cancel our trip, but thankfully she tested negative so our trip was back on. 

In the days leading up the the trip I realized that I had absolutely no anxiety about this vacation.  Normally before a vacation I'm a bundle of nerves as a think about everything that could go wrong.  What if I'd booked the wrong campground? What if we can't find the places we want to visit? What if we get lost? What is it doesn't measure up? What if Brandon and the kids think my plans are dumb?

This time I felt as calm about the trip to Yellowstone as I would about a trip to Salt Lake.  I was like, "I know the area. We'll be fine."

I may have only lived in Yellowstone for 3 months, but it was definitely my home while I lived there. 

The kids had a half day of school on Friday. I had to cover the front desk so I went into work for most of the morning.  Brandon had the whole day off so he stayed home and packed the car. 

In the afternoon we started our trip to Yellowstone.  The drive from Twin Falls, Idaho to Canyon Village would take us about 5 hours.  But we planned to take our time and see some things along the way. 

Our Honda Pilot was packed to the brim. We've nearly outgrown this car, but it's paid for and still runs well so we hang onto it.  In order for all of us and our stuff to fit we have to pack very strategically. 

We have roof bag that we call "the hat."  The hat had all six of the sleeping bags, three air mattresses, and many other camping accessories in it.  Brandon had bought vacuum seal bags and had packed all our winter coats into one.  (I was very worried about cold weather.) He'd put three big quilts into the other.  He loved how much space the bags saved him in the hat. 

Inside the car was the tent, the suitcase with the kids clothes, the backpacks with Brandon and my clothes, and a huge bag full of food. In order to get it all to fit we had to squish the kids. Normally Derrick and Veronica share the back row and Charlotte and Lydia share the middle row.  But we just didn't have the room for that.  We had to put Veronica up into the middle of the middle row.  Then we could fold down two of the seats in the back row and full up the area next to Derrick.  It was squishy, but we knew that after the tent was set up we could put a lot of the gear in there and we could go back to the usual seating arrangement for the rest of the weekend. 

So with the car stuffed to near exploding we started driving.  

The first part of the drive was pretty uneventful.  I slept on the way to Pocatello and the kids watched a movie.  When we got to Blackfoot we stopped at the Walmart so the kids could go to the bathroom and I could buy tennis shoes.  That morning I'd remembered that my current tennis shoes are about a half size to small.  I haven't worn them all summer so that's how come I didn't remember sooner.  I'm usually okay with the half size too small, but I knew there was no way I would make it on all our hikes if my shoes didn't fit.  So I ran into Walmart and bought a super inexpensive pair of tennis shoes. I ended up walking 25 miles in those shoes over the next 5 days and they did their job well, but next time I need to invest in some actual hiking boots because I need some ankle support. 

Our next stop was Mesa Falls off of Highway 20 in Idaho. Brandon and I discovered this place on our first trip to Yellowstone together in 2008. And I've taken the kids here and he's taken the kids here, but this was our first time here together since 2008.

The kids didn't remember the area at all until I told them, "this is where we made it back to the car right before a hail storm."  Then Charlotte and Lydia sort of remembered.  That would become a reoccurring theme on this trip.  The kids would remember one small detail about a visit to a place, but they wouldn't exactly remember the specific place.

Anyway, we walked from the parking lot down a trail to the waterfall.  

 

Along the way we passed an old inn. 

And the "geyser drinking fountain" which sadly isn't even a water fountain any more. 

Then we came to the walkways that led to the water.

And we were rewarded with this beautiful sight.  I love Mesa Falls and consider it the welcoming committee for Yellowstone. 

Here are all the kids looking at the waterfall.

Lydia took this picture of me and Brandon together. 

Here's all four kids. (There were some weird faces happening in every one of the pictures I took here.)

Then we went back up the steps to the top.

We found a picnic area and had hoagie sandwiches that Brandon had made from home.  We were all in great moods and making lots of jokes. 

One of the jokes was when Derrick found this tree that had fallen down. He stood it up and Brandon said, "Um forest, you dropped this."  We all laughed and laughed. Oh it was good to be on vacation. 

The kids explored the forest for a bit and then we headed back to the car.  We saw a Blue Jay and I was able to get a picture. 

Our next stop was in West Yellowstone where we got gas.  I'd assumed gas would be super expensive in West Yellowstone, but I'd forgot that Montana doesn't have sales tax.  So it was cheaper than what we'd paid in Idaho.  This turned out to be true in the park as well.  It was still close to $4.00 a gallon, but it was cheaper than Twin Falls. 

While Brandon filled up the car with gas I took the kids across the street to the park.  We played at this park a few times when we came to West while we lived in Yellowstone so it was fun to see it again.  These swings were new. 

And then it was time to do what we'd been dreaming about for years - drive into the park!

The West Entrance is the busiest one in the park, but since we were entering at about 7:00 it wasn't crowded at all.

Derrick qualifies for a free National Parks Pass and I'd got him one years ago.  But this was actually our first time using it.  After we showed our pass the park ranger gave us a copy of the park map and newspaper.  As we drove away I happily shook the map.  I was so excited to be HOME. 

We drove along the stretch of road from West to Madison.  This was a road that I always considered, "boring" but on this drive it felt amazing. All the mountains and the river were so familiar. 

We saw Elk across the river. 

There were about three of them.

Or maybe four. Look at the picture and see what you can see. 

As we turned from Madison Junction and headed up to Norris Junction the sky got darker and so I stopped taking as many pictures.  We passed so many familiar things, Terrace Springs, Gibbon Falls, Beryl Springs. At Norris Junction we turned right and drove the 12 miles from Norris to Canyon Village.  This is the road in the center of Yellowstone's figure 8.  It's one we know very well. 

The 12 miles went quickly and soon we were dropping down into Canyon Village.  It felt a little strange to pass the entrance to the employee campground and keep going to the visitor campground. But even the visitor campground felt familiar.  

Brandon parked outside the campground office and I went to check in.  I ended up in a line for something like 20-30 minutes because it seemed like everyone in front of me had unusual circumstances.  They also all had to listen to the employees give long lists about the rules and how to be safe in bear country.

When I finally got up to the counter I told the employee, "I worked here in the controllers office 4 years ago so you don't have to tell me all the rules.  They got me all checked in super fast."

We'd arrived at the campground with a little bit of daylight.  But by the time I was checked in everything was dark.  We found our campsite and then Brandon and I put up the tent while the kids held flashlights for us.  We got the air mattresses blown up and made three beds.  Charlotte and Lydia shared one, Derrick and Veronica shared the other, and Brandon and I shared the third in the middle of the tent.  

We found the bathroom and everyone used that.  Then everyone got into pajamas and snuggled into their sleeping bags.  We were all so happy to be there.  

We'd made it.  The real adventure would start the next day.

Yellowstone Before and After

Okay, I know I left you on a bit of a cliff hangar in the last post. So let's just take care of that and tell you that Lydia's COVID test thankfully came back as Negative.  So we were able to go ahead with our long anticipated vacation to Yellowstone. 

Our Yellowstone trip turned out to be darn near PERFECT. And I want to tell you ALLLLLLLLL about it.  But I have a feeling that's going to turn into a multi day project. So this post is going to focus on the little happenings before and after the Yellowstone trip.  Then we'll focus on Yellowstone for as long as it takes. 

As I said in my last post there isn't a lot of guidance on what to do with siblings when one of them is waiting for a COVID test. I decided to keep all four kids home while we waited for Lydia's result.  

So Monday morning I emailed all the kids teachers and let them know what was going on. Then Brandon stayed home from work with the kids while I went to work. I had an important meeting at work that I couldn't miss so that's why we decided to have Brandon stay home.  

I think Brandon did a little bit of school with the kids, but mostly they played.  Here's Charlotte's Barbies going on vacation. 

We'd been told that the covid test would take about 48 hours before we'd have a result.  That meant we'd hear about it on Tuesday around 9:00 am.  By the end of the afternoon on Monday I was already making plans to send the kids to school on Tuesday as soon as we had a negative result. 

Thankfully the results came in late Monday afternoon.  And doubly thankfully the results were negative.  All our plans were back in motion. 

Derrick and Veronica went to school like normal on Tuesday.  Charlotte complained about not sleeping the whole night before and so I let her sleep in a little bit and then took her to school about an hour late.  And Lydia . . . well Lydia still had the cough that had kicked this whole thing off.  So she stayed home all day on Tuesday. I had her stay on the couch all day. She watched a lot of YouTube and by the end of the day was so bored. Her cough subsided enough that we both felt comfortable with her attending school on Wednesday. 

We had to cancel Derrick's speech therapy appt because even with the negative test his providers office didn't want anyone with a sick family member coming in.  Derrick had seen how to make whale rolls so he wanted to do that.  I'd started Rhodes dough rising earlier in the day and so when he came home from school we all made whale rolls. 

They turned out looking more like Pokemon then whales, but Derrick was really excited about them anyway. 

All the kids liked this little project too.

On Tuesday night I went to symphony rehearsal.  One of the songs basically has me playing the same note over and over and over again. I took this picture of the music and put it on Instagram with the caption, "Finally a song that matches my skills."

On Wednesday when all the kids were finally at school Brandon and I went grocery shopping for the Yellowstone trip. This is a time honored tradition where we buy lots of junk food. It was super fun. When we got home Brandon didn't have much time before work, and I had a lot of school stuff to do so we didn't have time to do much with the food.  We ended up piling it on the counter and I put a blanket over it so that the kids (and me) wouldn't be tempted by all that fun junk food. 

Later Brandon did get the food more organized. 

I feel like we are missing a lot in these pictures. There was WAY more food than this. 

I took my pretest for my financial accounting class on Wednesday morning.  The class had been over 50 chapters and I was worried that I wouldn't remember a lot of the earlier concepts, but I ended up doing well on the test.  I felt confident enough to schedule the real test for that evening.  I studied a few of the concepts that I was unsure about and then on  Wednesday evening I took my Financial Accounting Final.  And I passed it! Oh that felt good.  

What felt even better was that I hadn't hated the class.  When I took Financial Accounting when I was 20 it had been a long slog that culminated in me deciding I NEVER wanted to major in Accounting.  Going into this class 16 years later, I'd been a little apprehensive that the same thing would happen. I'd worried that Financial Accounting would kill my plans for this major. But I have a lot more life and work experience this time around and that made the class make much more sense.  (For example, I've actually worked with both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable so I didn't get them confused this time.) 

I was so happy to be done with the class.  It meant I could completely forget about school for the next few days. 

So on Thursday morning Brandon and I went on a date after the kids went to school. It was September 2nd which is 15 years since the day we met on a blind date. 

We went out to breakfast at IHOP. IHOP is in the strip mall next to the canyon so after we ate we decided to walk across the Perrine Bridge. Here's the Bridge in the background.

Brandon has walked across the bridge - with the kids!, but I never have.  It was a little unnerving, but overall really secure and fun. 

I took a few pictures to get one to put on Instagram.  Tis is the one I used. 

Here's the view from the bridge on one side. 

We also took a little walk on the canyon rim to the Love Lock wall.  We'll have to come back here on our anniversary and add a lock to the wall. 

Thursday was picture day at school. This day is getting a little trickier as the kids get older. I used to be able to give a lot of input into what they wore, but as they get older the kids want more control over the decision. I want the kids to have nice pictures, but I also don't want to overload them with too many suggestions.  So when Charlotte came out of her room wearing the tie dye shirt that she made at daycare 3 summers ago I tried to gently suggest that maybe she could wear one of the new shirts she got a month ago. But she insisted that this shirt showed her personality. I tried to suggest that maybe Lydia should wear her hair down in her picture instead of in the low pony tail she always wears.  But she insisted that she ALWAYS wears a pony tail.  And Veronica wanted to wear a shirt that had words on it and I tried to explain that the words wouldn't show. 

In the end Derrick was the only one that wore something that I would have chosen for picture day and that's because I held up to shirts and let him pick from those two pre-determined options.  

By the end of the day Picture Day was barely an after thought. We had so much packing and prepping to do.  Brandon took care of the food and equipment while I worked on packing clothes. 

I had the kids pick out what clothes they wanted to wear to school on Friday. Then I had them pick out what clothes they wanted to wear on Wednesday when we were back from vacation.  

And then I had them pick out clothes for while we were in Yellowstone.  We started out with 4 shirts, 4 pants, and 4 pairs of pajamas plus another pair of back up clothes.  But once I laid all those clothes out I realized it was a ton of clothes.  I also remembered that when we lived in Yellowstone for the whole summer we'd only bought 6 pairs of regular clothes, 1 church outfit, and 3 pairs of pajamas. So we were packing for this trip with proportionately WAY more clothes. 

I decided to cut the clothes amount in half. We'd have clothes and pajamas for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  I'd make sure to do laundry on Sunday and then the kids would wear those clean clothes on Monday and Tuesday.  I probably could have also planned to have them re-wear clothes without doing laundry.  But I knew that the showers in Yellowstone were shut down this year.  Laundry was still available.  So if we couldn't take showers we could at least do laundry and wear clean clothes. 

Somewhere in here Derrick lost another tooth.  It was directly above the one he'd lost at school just a week or so ago.  So now he had a giant hole in his smile. 

He thought it was really funny. 

On Friday I had to go into work from 8:00-12:00 to cover a hole in the front desk schedule.  This left Brandon at home to take care of taking Marcia to the kennel, patching two air mattresses, packing EVERYTHING in and on the car, and other random last minute things.  

I told him to come pick me up at work so I could for sure get out of there in a timely manner. He did come in and was able to pull me away from work. 

We came home and Brandon put together hoagies for dinner while I went to the school to meet up with the kids. Normally they have full days of school on Fridays, but for some reason ( cough labor day weekend cough) they had an early release day.  I usually stay on the other side of the street and wait for the kids to meet up and then cross the street.  They would probably be fine walking home by themselves, but Derrick can be a little unpredictable and I don't want the girls feeling like they are responsible for him if he'd in a bad mood.  

But there was no chance of him being in a bad mood this day.  He was so excited about Yellowstone. He'd talked about it non stop at school and his SPED teacher had scraped her plans for a lesson and just pulled up pictures of Yellowstone and done a lesson based on that. 

The other kids were thrilled too. We came home and I had them change into their old shoes so their new shoes wouldn't get dirty.  And then we got in the car and started going.  

And here's where we are going to have a break in the narrative.  I'll talk all about our Yellowstone Adventures in my next post(s).

But here's a picture of a Bison to tide you over. 

Our trip to Yellowstone lasted from Friday afternoon to Tuesday night. We got back home around 9:00 on Tuesday night and immediately had all the kids take showers and then get right in bed.  

We were all up for school on Wednesday, but it was HARD!  I felt like I was trying to merge onto a freeway without an onramp.  

Somehow we got all the kids to school on time.  I went right to work to start catching up on everything that I hadn't done on Monday and Tuesday.  

I'd been at work for about 3 hours, but still had about another hour of work to do when I got a call from the kids school.  Derrick was complaining about an upset stomach and acting like he would throw up. 

I was pretty certain he was just constipated (all that junkfood had a dark side.) But I also knew he was super tired.  I'd already cancelled his behavioral therapy for that evening and had told the girls primary leaders that they wouldn't be at girls activity.  So I figured coming home from school early was warranted too.  I hurried over to the school to pick Derrick up.  My plan was to bring him back to work and let him chill out on the couch in my office. 

Derrick was in tears when I picked him up. He kept telling me that his head hurt and when I felt it it seemed really hot.  This is when I slightly panicked.  We'd received an email from the school on Tuesday afternoon stating that Derrick had been in close contact with someone on Friday who had tested positive for Covid over the weekend.  The school didn't mandate quarantine unless Derrick showed symptoms too so I hadn't worried too much about it.  Brandon and I had joked that if Derrick had had to be in quarantine we should have just extended our vacation another 5 days. 

But now that Derrick was complaining of a fever and seemed to have a headache and stomach problems it didn't seem so funny or casual. 

I went back to work, but left Derrick in the car.  I grabbed the things I'd need to keep working from home.  Then we went to the store and bought a new thermometer.  The one we had has had dying batteries for a while and it's results have been suspect for far too long. I wanted to make sure I was getting accurate readings.  I also bought Pizza rolls because Derrick said that's what he wanted for lunch.  

Back at home I took his temperature.  I was completely normal. He ate a ton of pizza rolls and then laid on the couch while I finished up work.  He wasn't complaining about a headache any more and wasn't hot either. So I realized that he was probably just tired from the fun weekend.  

He watched Octonauts while I ran back to work to drop off my stuff. 

Overall this whole thing was really a non-issue, but it highlighted something very important.  My job ROCKS.  I was able to leave work at a moments notice to pick up my son at his school which is a less than 5 minute drive from my work. I could have bought him back to work and let him rest in my office without it affecting my job in any way.  And when I decided to work from home I was able to do that pretty easily.  There are a lot of things I like about my job, but the fact that I don't have to choose between my kids and work is one of the best things. 

For some reason I thought it be a great idea to schedule Derrick's IEP meeting for Wednesday afternoon.  In hindsight I should have known better than to think I'd want to go to a big meeting the day after getting home from vacation.  But it was too late to cancel that.  

So we had the meeting and it was actually really great.  Derrick still qualified for all the services and so that big hurdle wasn't an issue.  And it was great to talk to people who are all doing their best for Derrick.  We had his teacher, the principal, his SPED teacher, his speech therapist, his occupational therapist, and the district psychologist in attendance.  Everyone had great feedback and ideas for how to help Derrick.

At some point I went outside and checked on my garden.  My one black berry had ripened. (Next year we'll have a lot more.)

The raspberries were also close to ripe.  (We do have tons of these.)

And one of the tomato plants had grown taller than me.  Last year I unwittingly grew a bunch of determinate tomatoes that never grew very high.  This year I made sure to pick indeterminate varieties.

Look at that!

On Thursday I let Derrick sleep in.  This was because he had an appointment at 9:30 and it just seemed pointless to send him to school for less than an hour before checking him out again.  Plus it ensured that he'd be well rested.  

Derrick had picked out a volcano making kit as a souvenir in Yellowstone.  He and Brandon worked on making the plaster of paris and putting it in the mold.  Derrick was so excited. 

Then Derrick and I went to his appt.  I've wanted him to be in private Occupational Therapy for a while because his fine motor skills need some help. We've been on a wait list for about 8 weeks. So when the office called me up to schedule an evaluation I jumped on the first appointment they offered me - even if it was during school time.  (At work I talk to parents who are reluctant to take their kids to therapy during school time and I often tell them, "If your child had a broken leg the school would be fine with you checking them out of school for a doctors appointment.  Therapy is the same thing." So I decided to take my own advise.)

The evaluation went well - in that Derrick struggled with the fine motor skills parts of the assessments and qualifies for services.  He did excellent on the gross motor skills parts so he doesn't need to work on those.  

I dropped Derrick off at school, and went to work. 

When the kids came home we divided up the tube of toys that we'd bought as a souvenir in Yellowstone.  These tubes are becoming one of my favorite souvenirs.  They cost about $12, but they come with 12 little plastic animals.  We divide them up among the kids so it's actually a really good deal.

Friday, Friday, Friday I'm struggling to remember anything in particular about Friday. Probably because Friday was such a struggle. We were so so so so so tired. When I go back and talk about Yellowstone you'll see that we didn't really rest the whole weekend.  So we'd been going non stop for about 10 days at this point. 

Oh wait, I remember something.  Brandon and I signed the final papers for our mortgage refinance.  This was a super big deal, but I'll wait to talk about it until everything is finalized next week.  I don't want to jinx it. 

Let's just skip to Saturday.  

We slept in and then Brandon worked on cleaning the house with the kids while I was able to work on the garden. I didn't do anything too big, just a lot of weeding.  But it was nice to do that.  I listened to Bad Blood the Final Chaper and a while bunch of At Last She Said It episodes and was so enthralled by those that I never stopped to take pictures.  

This was September 11th and was 20 years since the date 9/11 became super significant. Brandon and I decided to take the kids to a 9/11 Memorial at the Twin Falls Visitor Center.  

We got there just as it started and all the kids had to go to the bathroom so they went into the visitor center and Brandon and I stood outside and watched the posting of the colors and listened to the Star Spangled Banner.  

Later we moved down to the parking lot and watched a 21 gun salute and listened while someone played Taps.  The whole thing reminded me so much of the military ceremonies we used to go to. 

They had a bunch of first responder vehicles and two fire trucks had a flag suspended between their ladders. 

The event people handed out flags to represent the lives lost 20 years ago.  And everyone was invited to walk out on the Perrine Bridge to wave the flags.  Lots of cars honked and waved back at us. 

We decided to walk across the whole bridge and come back on the other side.  Here we are going under the bridge to cross to the other side. 

The sun was really cool looking as it set.  (It was much bigger in real life.)

The other side of the bridge is the side where the Base Jumpers jump from.  There was a big group over there and we saw several of them jump.  

Here's a guy getting ready to go.  It's so nerve wracking watching them get ready.  It's only like a 5 second drop to the bottom and I just picture everything that could go wrong. 

But they all landed safely below. 

The kids all had fun walking and waving their flags. 

Here we are walking back to the car. 

As if that wasn't enough walking for one day, Brandon and I took Marcia on a walk after the kids were in bed.  We walked over to a nearby gas station with a red box machine.  We picked up In the Heights and watched that when we were back home.  It was a fun movie and I really liked it.  

And there you have it.  All the things that happened before and after our Yellowstone trip.  Now to get cracking on the deep stuff.