Yellowstone

This past weekend we went to Yellowstone with Casey's family.  We left Wednesday morning and cam home Sunday.  We picked up Casey's grandma on our way.  The rest of the family worried that we would get tired of her because she's so opinionated, but it was nice to have her in the back seat keeping Caleb entertained.  The DVD player helped when nothing else worked to keep him happy.  We were all tired of mickey mouse clubhouse by the end of the trip.

The first day we went to old faithful.  Some sat up close to watch and those of us that have seen it many times sat back on some logs to watch.  Caleb tried to be a big boy and sit on the logs to, but he fell off.  After that he just climbed all over them.

We drove along the firehole river drive and stopped to take some pictures overlooking the waterfall.  This is me, Caleb, Casey's mom and Casey's Grandma.

The second day we went to Canyon Village and did some of the hikes there that overlooked the waterfalls.  We didn't take Caleb on them it would have been too hard.  There was always someone willing to stay behind to watch him. We also went to fishing bridge.  There weren't any fish, but Caleb had fun playing in the rocks by the parking lot.

We drove around by Yellowstone Lake and stopped at the West Thumb Gyser Basin.   I have never walked around there before.  It was beautiful.  There were these deep pools of water that were so blue and clear that you could see down forever.  The walking path went right down by the lake.  It was neat. This is me and Casey by the lake.

The last day we decided to get started early.  We were ready to go by 7am.  Because it was so early I just woke up Caleb right before we left and took him in his pajamas.  It was a cold 37 degrees that morning.  We hiked around some paint pots first thing that morning in the cold and fog.  By the time we were done the sun was burning of the fog and it warmed up.  We had to stop for about 20 min for construction so we let Caleb climb around in the truck.  This is him driving with Casey.

Our goal that day was to see a bear.  Thankfully we accomplished our goal.  It was just right off the road.

 We went to Mammoth and there was a big elk taking a nap behind one of the buildings there.

 When we got back to West Yellowstone everyone wanted to go to the Grizzly and Wolf discovery park.  Caleb's cousins got to go into the bear pen and hide food for the bears to find. They were pretty excited.  Caleb didn't care about seeing the bears.  He just wanted to throw rocks.  This is Caleb riding a bear that was just outside the discovery park. 

I think Caleb had fun.  He learned a lot of new words. "mammals"-animals    "whullalo"-buffalo  "uk"-elk 

 I think the buffalo were his favorite.  We saw a big herd of buffalo and there were some laying down and Caleb said, "whullalo night night."  It was pretty cute.  He's starting to try to say everything he can.  We don't understand most of it, but at least he's trying.