Island Park Part II

 1 Million (trees)
1,935 (pictures taken)
200 (miles a day)
50 (family members)
25 (bison)
3 (moose)
2 (all because they fell in love)

Thursday:

Island Park holds a dear spot in my heart. I grew up there. I have memories for as long as I can remember there. Although, now, some of my memories are backwards (Mack's inn remaining chimney I though was on the South side - its on the north side). Even though they may be backwards - one thing remains the same. That is the only place I have memories of my grandma. Before I was born, my Grandpa and dad built an amazing cabin. My grandpa died when I was just a few months old so I have no memory of him. When he passed on - my dad got the cabin. Having 8 children, living 6 hours away, and financially having no means to take care of the place he sold it. Even though we sold the cabin, we always spent up to a week in Island Park. That was the legacy of the ward reunion.


Thursday morning didn't come as bright and early as it did on Wednesday, well for us anyways. My mom had heard some Elk right outside our cabin windows ( about 50 feet from theirs). We took our time getting up, eating breakfast and getting dressed. Not all of us wanted to do the same thing, so we split up into 3 groups. My parents went back into town. Both A's families went tubing down the river. Bryce, I, L and J decided we were going to head up to Yellowstone National Park. I had heard that they bears were up in Mammoth so we took off in that direction. We stopped off at every. single. point. We were so unprepared! I figured we would be gone a few hours and head back to the cabin, I was a few hours off. We saw tree after tree looking for animals. Did they even exist? We stopped off at waterfall after waterfall. We hiked, crawled, rolled our way through the park. We finally reached mammoth with no luck of bears. or wolves. or eagles. or anything.

Can you tell he is tired of the waterfalls????

Funny store behind this, I was trying to be silly and capture a 'car picture' like everyone does to post wherever. I was taking them of myself when my sister said "take on of you and Bryce" so I did, and I said "smile honey!!!" and that is the look I got. Awesomeness right there!!!!!

Totally photo bombed her picture right there. It looks so much better with me in it, right?

I was showing my nephew how to take a good picture of yourself, I am great at that!

Bryce and I did not have one single moment to ourselves. i though I was having a small intimate moment and I was caught!

By the time we reached mammoth, it was nearly 6 at night. We had run out of food (my sister didn't pack anything, luckily we over pack but we weren't planning on staying that late so we ran out) They had this small store but the prices we outrageous. We got what we needed to hold us over. I think I spent $20 on a bag of chips, dip and a drink for Bryce. We then started to head back stopping for a light dinner. On our way out of mammoth we found some animals! FINALLY! yes, I really was that close, and protected by a police officer.

 We were nearly complete with our loop when we found some more animals. That was basically all I went to see :)

Yes, I really did get that close to them too.

 We got back to the cabin shortly after 10. We ate an actual dinner, got cleaned up and headed to bed. It was a long exhausting day.


This picture below is a funny story.. kind of.



We took 2 water bottles with us. My sister grabbed 2 water bottles. I had no idea that there are NO WATER FOUNTAINS in Yellowstone. As a matter of fact, the bathrooms were disgusting! I held my pee for as long as I could. at about 4 I could not hold it any longer. We found a 'bookstore' that had no access to water fountains but the bathrooms were actually semi clean. It was great to see a semi clean bathroom that didn't make me dry heave 5 feet outside the door. They had vending machines (but no fountains, remember?) but who in their right mind would pay $2.00 for 14.5 oz of water????? We passed. Not far up the road there was a campground that had a water station. We were like 4 crazy people outside this little wood post doing a rain dance or something. We would stand there and fill up a water bottle and drink it before the next one was filled. It was insane. And I am sure people think we are a bunch of crazies here in Utah. Thanks to us!

 Too be continued...