Family Vacation 2014 Part 2

PART 2

Continuation of Day two:

 We stopped at the paint pots and admired them for a while. They were actually my favorite place to visit. The boys died laughing over the mud pots. They called them the "Poop" pots.. HA HA HA! I love my boys! For the rest of our life's we will be calling them 'Poop pots."

I am really pointing at nothing, But Cooper wanted to take a picture of his Momma pointing at something. Anything for this little dude!

 His Turn to point!

Yellowstone is amazing and so strange. You almost feel like you are the last people on earth. Its so quiet and Erie. Nature is amazing!!

The geysers that shot out water were Jackson and Coopers favorite. They were a little disappointed when geysers didn't shoot out water and steam .

Before we left on our vacation, we had heard that it was the season for Bears. We had some friends that went up the week before us and saw 9 bears. So Naturally We were super excited and ready to see a bear, we had our eyes peeled every second we spent in Yellowstone, but they were no where..
Sadly We did not see any Bears at all, not even a hint of a Bear. All of our Bear hopes were dashed.  We did however see a lot of gorgeous scenery while looking for the mystery Bears.. That part of America is amazing!

You can't see it here, but sweet Jackson found a bush full of caterpillars. He was pretty thrilled about this. He is our Bug man!!

 Time for a story:

The Buffalo here are everywhere, and it doesn't matter how many you see, they are still awesome, and exciting to see every time. 

So there is a story here with this particular Buffalo that you see in the picture below. First of all, everyone knows that the number one rule to Buffalo's is to leave them alone right? 

Even if you have never heard of a buffalo, and you happen to come across one while exploring, you would back up and get the heck out of there, right?

Well not everyone gets that memo, or if they get it they certainly don't listen to it. We were driving by an open pasture and see this amazing creature and think "WOW, that's amazing! Sure glad I am in my car!" 

Then we notice a Dude out in the pasture walking towards this very large, very "I could kill you if I wanted to" creature. And all of our first thoughts were, " What are you doing Mister? Back up and just say No!"

Of course this guy wasn't going to listen to anyone, because I don't know, maybe this guy thought he was the Buffalo whisperer or something, maybe he wanted to see if Buffalo's really do attack, or maybe he just wanted a friend. What ever reason this guy had, he was going to "meet" this buffalo.

Soon enough the Buffalo notices this guy and slowly started walking towards the him, the guy stops, 

 probably peed his pants a little, and realized he better think of something, so he slowly started to back up towards some small trees thinking this is going to be his protection should anything happen. (let me emphasize SMALL TREES)

Eventually the buffalo had backed this guy into the trees, and instead of choosing to slowly back into his car ( which wasn't that much further behind him) to safety, this guy stops and climbs the tree...... 

What?  Dude!  He climbs a tree...... OH MY GOODNESS!!! I almost couldn't believe it.. You know this can't end well.
At this point we drove off,  we had places we needed to be and time running out, so Very sad to say that we didn't get to see the end of this story. But, OH How I wish we could have.
 I am sure it didn't end well, and I am sure that the wife of that man gave him a serious, serious tongue lashing.
 But the lesson we can ALL learn for this is to leave the giant animals alone, that's why we have cats and dogs. And if you really have a need for a giant animal, go and buy yourself a horse.. 
To the dude in the tree, I hope you made it, and I hope that your desire to befriend a buffalo was fulfilled!

But Seriously These beautiful Animals are everywhere.

We had a great Day two. We saw so many amazing sights. As we drove from place to place we cranked up the "Wicked" sound track, and some Michael Jackson and rocked our hearts out!! 
Love this little family of mine.

Day Three:

Mammoth.

On day 3 we headed to the very top of the road map and worked our way back to the Tetons. We started our day our in Mammoth. The town was very sweet, almost out of a make believe movie small town, town. 

I have to admit that the sights at Mammoth were not our favorite. Although they were interesting, and we for sure appreciated the wonder that they are. We did not mark it as our number one favorite place to visit. Our stay there was short and we moved onto the next sights.

Our Next Stop was the upper and lower Water Falls. These were may favorite. They were incredibly powerful, and breath taking, and a little scary. This was a fun adventure getting to them.

We started with the Lower water falls. It was a great hike. On our way down we came across this amazing Animal. Look how close we are. We took our pictures and moved on. We didn't want to tempt fate, or the animal. They boys loved seeing this animal so close up. 

The Hike down was so majestic. There is something about the sound of rushing water that is so calming. Its such a wonderment to me, I get so mesmerized by it.

I was so glad we got to see this, again, Nature is amazing!

Then it was onto the Upper falls. This was a much less majestic hike, but still just as amazing. There were alot more people on this trail. And I have to admit I was nervous that the boys would fall, my Momma heart was on high speed the whole time we walked this trail. I am glad we got to see the water falls, and I was so glad we all made it back to the car safely and together. Just writing about this adventure on here makes my heart pound a bit. 

After the Falls, we moved onto the Cauldron. These were so fun to watch.

Can you spot the buffalo in the back ground?

So These last few pictures are part of the Lower water falls hike, they got mixed up when I uploaded these pictures, and honestly, I am so lazy to bump them up.. So here they stay. :)

On the way down to the falls it started to rain on us, No biggie, its just rain.. But then it started to come down harder and faster, and then it turned to hail.. We had to take shelter under some trees because the hail was huge, and it hurt when they hit you. Mike and I had to hover over Jackson and cooper to protect them from the hail.  It was only a moment, but an intense one. Poor Jacks got hit in the back of his head pretty good, made him cry a little. So sorry Jackson..

We survived the one minute storm, oh how happy we were it was over, these babies hurt big time!
And just look at my sweet Jackson's smile here. It melts my Momma heart. I have two of the greatest babes around.

This is the end of Part Two...... Part Three is in the works...  Oh Happy Vacation..