It’s been a few weeks since our trip but in my admittedly week attempts to make up for lost time I’m writing about out trip to Yellowstone. Last May my family and the parents went on a trip to Yellowstone. The trip started on Thursday morning as we left Salt Lake around 8:30am. The first stop on the trip was a place called Bear World in Idaho. Bear world is a nice place that allows you to drive in a circle looking at bears. If you don’t see enough of them the first time you get to do it again. The bears completely ignore the car. It’s a nice enough place to see the bears and they have a little area with rides that the kids really liked. They have another area where you can see the bear cubs. Overall the place is a good place to go if you have small kids, but it’s a bit pricey for what you get.

Our next stop was in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I have no pictures of Idaho Falls. I’ll just sum up Idaho. The less time I spend in Idaho the better. I had the wife get me a lottery ticket. I lost, or at least I was not one of the winners. I’ve bought about 3 lottery tickets in my life. I’ve not won on any of them. We left Idaho Falls as quickly as I could get the family out of there. My mother likes the Idaho Falls because her grandmother is from there. I remember visiting there when I was a kid. In fact my grandmother had a sword in her basement that I really wanted. I still want it. She died a long time ago: it must have been at least 14 years ago. I never saw that sword again. Enough with Idaho Falls.

Our next stop was, at last, Yellowstone. Actually it was West Yellowstone, Montana. We stayed at the Days Inn. When we got there we had plenty of time to visit the park that same day, so naturally we got dinner, played in the pool and fell asleep. The next morning we had breakfast at their restaurant, which was complimentary of the hotel. The food was great – there was no shortage of bacon. We hit the North Loop of Yellowstone first thing on Friday. We saw the Mammoth Hot Springs, which was more of a drive-by. On the way we saw lots of Buffalo and a lot of elk as well. The North Loop is great, but all the action is in the South Loop, which we saw on Saturday – when everyone else decided to visit Yellowstone. We saw all the big spots that you would expect, including Old Faithful… and the other stuff. What I didn’t get to see was something that I guess I just imagined. I remember an area with water pouring out of it. It was a cave that would suck a bunch of water into it then heat the water up and spit it all back out. The last time I saw this I must have been much younger because I remember something much more dramatic than the cave that was there this visit. We did get to see the mud pots that I was so excited about and they were perfect. It was just cold enough to keep them thick and ploppy as I remembered as a kid. ‘Ploppy’, by the way, is the name Aubrey gave for the paint pots. That ended the North and South Loops. The final day was Sunday. Sunday my mother led a guilt trip to make me attend the local church they have. The ward is actually nice – and packed. I believe it would be really interesting to be a member of that ward. New people would be there every Sunday. It could be fun though, and I believe it would drive the members together even more. After that we headed home. Again we stopped off at the Idaho Falls for lunch. We went to the IHOP. They made no attempt to change my mind of Idaho. I choose to never visit Idaho again unless they can promise that I’ll win the lottery.

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