Day 10
The next morning, the sun was shining and the clouds had dissipated. The show was still playing over and over in my head. The colors were something mother nature could have only created herself!
The drive to the Rocky Mountain National Park was just was I was hoping for. Before we had gotten very far into the park, David said, I saw something in the woods. We pulled over & there was a moose cow laying quietly in the forest. Soon we noticed a calf there as well. This got us all excited, but especially the kids. It was awesome! Next, we were offered a valley with beautiful grasslands AND a huge heard of elk. They were incredible!
We stopped at an educational area that had the oldest cabin in the park. A family in the late 1800s had created a camp along the Never Summer Mountain for visitors to come & enjoy this scenery. A park ranger was giving kids a chance to investigate the pond's health along the stream in the park. They were given a net & asked to try & scoop out anything alive. Gabe caught some dragon fly larva and Grayson caught some black fly & mosquito larva. The ranger said these showed that the pond was healthy. She gave them bug boxes so they could scoop up some of the water bugs to take a closer look. I am truly shocked that we escaped that adventure with Grayson not toppling into the pond himself! Thank goodness for David!
The next thing on Gabe's agenda was the “wooden horse.” This was an area in the camp where they could sit on a saddled strapped to a log & try their hand at roping a wooden horse. The boys loved it! We saw “Mama's cabin”, tried on cowboy hats & got caught in the rain on the way back to the RV. As we drove through the Park, we saw lots of elk & snow capped mountains. The views were getting higher as the temperature dropped. It was really chilly & windy at the top. The boys were doing the Jr. Ranger program here as well. When we arrived at what seemed the top of the world, we took the boys papers into the Ranger to have them check out their papers. It was a nice older gentlemen. He took the boys to a bench and went over their papers and asked the boys some questions. Then, without us knowing, the gentlemen stood up and took the boys over to a very crowded visitors center & with a booming voice said, “May I have your attention everyone. Almost the entire place stopped & he announced that he had there the 2 newest Junior Rangers of Rocky Mountain National Park. Gabe & Grayson Sheets. I thought at first that Grayson was going to shy away and come stand with david & I, but he stood right beside his brother. They both were proud. It was a great feeling. David chuckled mom and I got teary eyed.
As we were coming down the mountain, we saw an elk standing in the middle of a snow. It was like a post card. Things sometimes are so beautiful here they truly seem unreal! This trip sometimes seems unreal. We have seen so many diverse things & sight we never thought we would get a chance to see, it has been great. My children have grown in their appreciation for this beautiful area. They have been engaged, asked questions and been GREAT “spotters!”
Okay, so they haven't been perfect. Usually around dinner time when we are seeing some cool things. They are hungry & dinner isn't ready, they get silly & drive us nuts, but over all, I can not complain about their behavior at all!
We arrived at the Estes Park Spruce Lake campground was waiting on us with a roaring river – thankfully not right at our site, a swimming pool, flat and great for bike riding, putt putt, a playground and fishing lake. COOL! The boys were thrilled. The pool was heated so the first on the agenda was to head out to the pool. They met some kids to play with diving toys. What a great break for them. David & I were hoping to get them settled in & ready for bed so we could take a dip in the hot tub, but it did not happen....oh well. The campground was great for all of us. A nice break.
Day 11
We are leaving Estes Park. This is kind of the end of “my journey” because I am going to be out of familiar territory and the beginning of the adventure for me. Estes Park offers a pedestrian walk beside the river with beautiful vistas. I was afraid at first that we would not be seeing the familiar site of Elk just wandering through the streets and thorough fairs. It was just a little wait until we found this beautiful site. There were elk in the upper areas after we strolled through downtown. Gabe and Grayson of course only saw the downtown as a way to beg for ice cream which was available on every other store front. Shame on these people for torturing parents of young children!
Another memory that I was afraid was just in my little brain cells was that of a GEORGEOUS road that led to Estes Park that had a road, a canyon & a river right beside it that followed it all of the way. Again, I was not disappointed!! The road was as beautiful or more so that I remembered! I have attached pictures on my FaceBook page. Oh thank goodness that my infatuation with Colorado was again verified instead of denounced! I love this state all over again!
When I was out here 16 years ago, I was just coming off of a long stint of working at Chriswell Farms – a spanish arabian horse farm. The only job I was able to land when I was searching my soul for a place to call home & an income, was the home of the Denver Bronco horse farm. It only offered $700 a month which was $100 less than what I had been paid at Chriswell in Waynesboro,VA. Not quite enough to support the $500+ expenses that I would have incurred trying to live out here. But, driving out of Estes Park & on our way to Thermopolis, WY, we passed Cheyenne, WY. This was naother place on my quest for employment which turned out void as well. The drive proved to be just as beautiful as I remembered. It provided beautiful vistas filled with buffalo (although on a ranch environment), prong horns, and old borken down farms.
Once we got to Thermopolis, we found a nice little campground, but not a lot going on around it unless you wanted to pay to swim in the 90 degree water park in 100 degree weather – no thanks......did not tell the kids about that possibility! So, we decided to let the boys ride their bikes & skateboard that night & head out early going to Yellowstone.
Day 12
This morning greeted us with another beautiful morning. As we drove towards Yellowstone, every time we see a buffalo (or horse or cow!)- Grayson continues to say hi to “Buffalo Bill” & “OIL WELL” as well every time we saw one.
Also, I thought mom was literally talking about the sheep dog that was in the field when she said look at the prairie dogs. But, there was actually a colony of prairie dogs! There continues to be funny things happening on this trip! We drove through Cody and thought about stopping at the Buffalo Bill museum & historic center, but the weather had turned rainy & unpleasant so we continued on to Yellowstone. So glad we did. After we stopped by the campground check-in and found our spot for the night, we decided to head out and to see if we could find anything. Oh man!!! We were barely 10 miles up from Fishing Bridge & the on coming traffic had stopped. We saw 2 HUGE and I mean BIG HUGE buffalo headed straight for us. We completely stopped. I had never felt like we were small in this RV until this very moment. Even though they came up to our side window – barely – which is higher than my whole entire car – I was completely intimidated! So was Grayson. He really wanted to see “Buffalo Bill,” but at the same time, he was scared! Understandably so!!! Their horns, neck & whole body was enormous. See my FB page!!
As we continued on this beautiful road which is lined with pine trees on both sides & the Yellowstone River, we saw a huge pelican floating down the river! It feels like we are in Mrs. Frizzle's school bus & the wild doesn't even know we are here. (For those of you whose children did not have the Magic School bus, she is a great hands on teacher with fuzzy hair like mine who takes her kids on great adventures) We drove up through a crooked road that we eventually learned was not recommended for RVs (glad we did not know that because it was well worth the risk!) it started to snow & hail on tis tiny, narrow, mountainous & very crooked road! We saw elk & buffalo around every turn, well that is a slight exaggeration. The boys were getting hungry. I think Gabe is 15 already because his appetite has quadrupled since we left home. (must be a growth spurt!) We were looking for a pull off that would provide a nice scene to look for wolves, grizzly & coyotes. Well, we did not see any of those, but there was a heard of buffalo slowly flowing over Lamar Valley. We found a pull off & I started cooking quesadillas while everyone watched tis herd get closer & closer to the RV. There was also a herd of elk to watch. We literally had dinner in the middle of a herd of about 300 buffalo including fairly young calves. They just sauntered around us like we were not there. I have never had a better view for dinner, even at a great restaurant which I paid a lot more money for the view than tonight! It was exhilarating!
Wayne was not sure about us staying here for 3 nights. I don't think he came on the east side of Yellowstone because I think I could live here!
Grayson fell asleep on the way back as we were still searching for the wolf, grizzly, mountain goats, & big horn sheep. The weather was a little better on our return. Every time you see a lot of cars pulled over you are tring to see what they see. Up the road about a mile or so we could see large groups of people in the pull offs. We were already searching because we knew we were back in the area where many of the animals we needed to check off had been spotted. David said, “There's something moving across there quickly after something.” We spotted it & knew it couldn't be anything but a grizzly. The elk & buffalo were on full alert & moving. Unfortunately, mom was driving and did not see it befroe it disappeared behind the hills. Talk about chill bumps! It is still hard for me to believe that we are in the same area where all of these animals are carrying out the life cycle without much attention paid to all of the binolulars, cameras, and cars. There are people here they call wolf watchers that will hunker down in the afternoons with their binoculars stuck to their faces.
The campground doesn't give us an abundance to do or incentive to do anything outside. The mosquitos were terrible & the boys just road bikes. There was a small trail to the country store. What the campground lacks, the views from today certainly made up for!
Day 13
Our first full day of Yellowstone greeted us with yet again beautiful weather! After our breakfast, we started out for Old Faithful. Judging by the size of the crowd, we knew it was pretty close to the time for eruption. We were right There were steam pots (not the technical term) steaming all about while we waited so we had plenty to look at. Old Faithful, we learned was a young geyers. You can tell by the size of its dome it has created over time. After a few 3-6 foot high spurts, I was beginning to think that was it, but shortly we saw the show & it was a show. Grayson's mouth stayed open almost the entire time. From that point on, every time he saw a geyser go, Grayson would say, “There she blows, again!” It was great to watch his amazement & excitement. Gabe liked the thermal pots better. He did not understand what the signs meant “Stay off the bacteria mats.” So, he asked a ranger. From that point on, he enjoyed talking about photosynthesis & telling me that the buffalos were ruining bacteria mats. He also learned the reason the buffalo walk through the thermals is because they do not have nerves in their hooves. It actually pretty dangerous because they can not feel when the ground is hollow and the ranger told us there were many deaths each year by the buffalo falling into thermal pools. We saw more buffalo herds which of course prompted Grayson to talk about buffalo bill! He is a great spotter. I think the mud pots were fun. Even though we saw several that had splattered out onto the walkways! That was a bit scary after seeing how hot they are. Granny would be relived to know that Grayson did a great job of holding hands, not trying to touch the water & staying close. It was extraordinary that there were kids there barely walking and their parents were even terribly concerned with keeping them close. Then there was a young lady who stepped off the trail put her hand in the water & rubbed it on her face. Hope she did not have any openings the water got into after the way they described the organisms living in there.....yikes! Not to mention the water was anywhere from 100-400 degrees.
Day 14
This is our last full day in yellowstone, so we are heading up to the farthest northern part close to Montana to see Mammoth Hot Springs. As we started out, Grayson was spotting the buffalo again. We saw some “big boys” right beside the road. We headed to the upper & lower falls and the Artist's Point is at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The water fall was beautiful & it allowed the boys to hear a ranger talk to earn towards their Jr. Ranger badge. It also gave the boys a chance to “walk the plank” now Granny, I am not talking about over the water. There was a huge concrete wall in the parking lot and of course Gabe & Grayson could not pass up the chance to climb up the wall & walk across. The river, canyon & waterfall were gorgeous. Mom got some good pictures & ready for some more great paintings. We next stopped at the Steamboat Geyser. It was beautiful & Gabe spotted an elk behind the water as it spewed. The walk was easy but it was a bit hot today! The hot springs were gorgeous. When we pulled into Mammoth Hot Springs, there were mama & baby elks just laying around on this beautifully groomed lawn. People were getting very close, but they did not seem to pay any attention. It was so cool to get an up close look at these beautiful animals. I am not sure whose house it was, but they had plenty of fertilizer to keep their grass green!
It was right in the middle of the day & we hiked up to the top of the terraces at the hot springs. We listened to a very energetic park ranger talk about the biology & geology that went hand in hand to create these terraces. You know, if I would have had her as a geology professor in college & not just look at pictures in a book, I might have been a bit more interested! The colors & shapes here were incredible and so was Grayson's ability to keep up with us. Gabe was tired today and I wasn't sure he was going to make it through until David and I reminded him that he needed to get into shape for football & he increased his speed & had a bit more positive attitude.
After we left the hot springs, we headed to the park headquarters and the boys hot their patches fr being Jr. Rangers. Everyone clapped again. The neatest thing here to me was that Gabe wanted us to stay and listen as others got theirs because, “They stood there and listened to us, so we should do the same for them.” I never feel like a great parent, but when you heard your child say things like that, it makes you grateful for the children that you have.
We headed back to the campground through the Lamar Valley hoping that we would get another shot at seeing the mammals we are missing from our list: swans, big horn sheep (or as mom keeps calling them – long horn sheep), black bear, & wolves. David spotted something down in the holler. As we turned the corner and there were cars lining the road & a ranger. It is so bizarre how these rangers appear whenever there is a bear around. You don't see any park ranger cars, bicycle, horse or any other type of vehicle. The rangers just seem to appear. We were lucky enough to find a spot to park the RV. Not only was there a black bear but 2 cubs as well! It was so awesome. The boys were glued to the side of the road. We were talking to the ranger and said there was a grizzly bear down the road as well. We were torn as to whether we should stay here & watch these 3 play on the logs or go on and try to see the grizzly. Staying was worth the wait We even named the bears. I was the mama bear. Gabe was the bear cub that was independent & Grayson was the cub that kept falling of the logs & taking risks. We thoroughly enjoyed watching this little family on their afternoon outing.
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