Checklist

So, I'm wrapping up Yellowstone today with our Checklist and JR Highlights. If you've been to Yellowstone you already know exactly what we saw since I don't think it's changed in 50 years. I'm guessing those of you who've been probably have these same exact pictures (except with your faces in them, of course).

Yellowstone Lake Boat Tour-CHECK


Upper Falls at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone-CHECK

Rapids-CHECK

Sulfur Cauldrons-CHECK

Mud Volcanoes-CHECK


And of course...



CHECK, CHECK, and CHECK!

JR Yellowstone Highlights

Driving the boat in Yellowstone Lake. I couldn't believe our guide let JR drive...and either could JR.

Becoming a Jr. Park Ranger. The Park Ranger had everybody stop and clap for JR as he received his patch. JR was thrilled...he loves applause and being the center of attention (I have no idea where he gets it from).

He begged to go fishing the whole time we were there.

Having the babies think his top bunk was the coolest place to play ever. Okay, so maybe that's a baby highlight and not one of JR's

And of course, the best part of all....S'mores.

Yellowstone or an East Texas Walmart?

So I know I haven't written about Yellowstone yet, but I've been trying to figure out what to write. So I guess I'll just jump right in and give you my impressions as a native Texan/current Coloradoan/former Beijinger:

1. It's really big. So big, in fact, that there was tons more driving than I thought there'd be. We'd drive to see "this" then get back in the car and drive to see "that". As a current Coloradoan I couldn't believe we were out in nature having to drive around, as a native Texan it seemed totally normal.

2. Yellowstone is not the place to go be Grizzly Adams. People here in Colorado just go out in the National Forests and camp, hike, raft, ski, snowshoe, ect. There's none of that allowed at Yellowstone (and the stuff that is allowed is highly monitored...the hardly let you fish). They definitely don't want you off the marked paths. The whole place is almost like a zoo for nature. You can look, but don't get too close, and definitely don't touch!

3. Continuing along those lines, I was thinking our camp site would be this beautiful, natural, picturesque spot. I imagined the kids just running around free and wild...Um, not so much. Our camp site was a big parking lot, a parking lot surrounded by pine trees. We were laughing that we might as well be camping at any Walmart parking lot in East Texas.

4. Of course the campsite wasn't all parking lot. We did have our own little patch of dirt right in front on our RV. It seems the babies love picking up rocks and sticks to chew on, and that their food tastes much better after it's been dropped in the dirt. Our RV was actually very nice, and as a former Beijinger, I'm quite used to sandstorms, so the dirt patch wasn't an issue at all. The kids hosed off nicely in the RV bathtub each night.

5. Yellowstone is not a drive-thru safari. There certainly weren't any animals sticking their heads in our car windows! We saw lots of chipmunks and squirrels, 2 bison, and a coyote. But no bears (grizzly, black, or ones wearing a hat and green bow tie). We did get up close and personal with tons and tons of mosquitoes. The Coloradoan in me couldn't believe we had to endure such a nuisance as swarming mosquitoes, but the native Texan and former Beijinger in me could swat those things like nobody's business!

(That's a bison.)

In actuality, we really did enjoy ourselves, I just had to make fun of the few things I wasn't expecting. I'll be back with a Yellowstone checklist of sites and JR highlights soon.

Tourist Traps

I love a good tourist trap, and of course, a good photo-op. And if those two go hand-in-hand, well, Woo-Hoo! Thankfully Jason loves tourist traps too. I did have to school him in the art of the photo-op though. He would come home from his business trips with a camera full of photos of landmarks. I finally told him, "I don't like pictures without people in them." Needless to say, I now have albums full of Jason standing by himself in front of every Asian landmark imaginable. So here are our fun non-Yellowstone side ventures/tourist traps/photo-ops (SLC excluded since it was in the previous post).


Wilson's Arch-24 miles south of Moab, Utah. I about made Jason have a wreck when I spotted this one, but it was just too good not to slam on the brakes for. 46 feet high with a span of 91 feet.


More rock scenery around Wilson's Arch. JR stoped stomping fireants just long enough for me to snap his picture.


It's Wyoming. And it looked just like I thought it would.



Unfortunately it was raining in Afton, Wyoming as we drove under the World's Largest Elkhorn Arch. So we had to settle for a picture with a much smaller version in Jackson Hole.

Raise your hand if you've been to Idaho. I have! I have!

Of course we had to stop at the World Famous Hole N" The Rock in Utah. Not only did we stop, we went on the 12 minute tour! Albert and Gladys Christensen blasted and drilled for 12 years to carve out a 5,000 square foot home for themselves, which them moved into in 1952. It has 14 rooms and remains exactly the same as it was when Gladys died in 1974. I don't have any pictures since they aren't allowed on the tour, but you can see most of it here.

Albert's memorial to FDR to the left, and one of their doors to the right.

And now for the piece de resistance of tourist traps: The Four Corners. I was thinking this would have been highly commercialized, but it wasn't at all. I think part of the problem is that it's so hard to get to. It is quite literally in the middle of nowhere. And sadly, this is the best picture I have. It was our turn to take pictures, but as you can see, the people to the right wouldn't wait their turn or get out of our picture. My idea was to just let the Rude Nonwaiting In Line People go on ahead and then take more pictures after they left, but Kyle had a major meltdown about wanting to climb the stairs leading up to the platform marker, so that was it for pictures. But after carefully looking, it does seem to appear that all the states are being touched.

Reed is clearly standing in both Utah and Arizona.

Kyle is in Arizona.

Jason is in Colorado and Utah.

And in the process of trying to make sure he was in Colorado, I do believe JR's back left heel is in New Mexico.

I was able to get JR to pose for my again, and I do believe his thumbs are barely touching New Mexico and Utah, putting him in all 4 states at once.

Just Get on with the Pin Trick!

We're home from the great outdoors of Yellowstone! I'll be posting some of those stories later, but today I wanted to post about our stop in Salt Lake City. We thought SLC would be a good place to spend the night since it's about half way, and I wanted to see "some Mormon stuff". Well, we definitely got to see The Mormon Stuff. I don't know why, but I honestly thought we'd just be able to take the tour where you get to hear the pin drop in the Tabernacle without anybody trying to convert us. (As my friend, JD, put it....I "wanted to go on the Samantha Brown Tabernacle tour".) The second we walked in the visitor's center I realized what I had gotten us into. I put on my "don't look at me, talk to me, or mess with me" face and breezed right passed the two "greeters". Jason, of course, strolls in and starts acting "interested". Next thing I know, Jason's standing there with 2 girls who are happily going to take us on a private tour. (Our girls were from Canada and England, but I heard plenty other "tour guides" speaking in every language imaginable.)

Our "tour guides" were as nice as could be. Happy to let us take pictures of whatever we wanted, and more than happy to tell us all about their founder, Joseph Smith. Now, if you know me, then you also know I have no poker face. And since Jason had us on a private tour, I tried my best to keep my sunglasses on as much as possible as to not completely give away what I was really thinking.

So here's the Temple, which is what I thought we were going to get to tour since I thought this was the Tabernacle. Nope. And this is as close as we could get to the Temple. The Tabernacle is way smaller and more nondescript than I thought it would be. I guess it's so nondescript that I didn't even find it picture worthy since I didn't even take a picture of it.

Finally, they let us actually go in the Tabernacle. They didn't do the pin trick, but the kids got to echo their voices all they wanted...which is why JR is so excited in the picture. And you'll also notice Reed is none too happy about being in the Tabernacle. My mom would say that's because Reed wants to be a Presbyterian. (Reed picked my mom's Catechism off her book shelf and carried it around with him for half a day, hence his desire to be Presbyterian.)

And here's JR with the 15,000 organ pipes. Again, I can't believe how small it was!

And even though Jason acted "interested" as he walked in the door, I think they pretty much figured out we weren't and we only got the soft sell. My badgering of one of the "tour guides" about her use of the word "prophet" to describe Jesus was probably a big clue. Oh, and BTW, the homes outside of Salt Lake City are enormous. I'm just sayin....