Trip Motto: Be Flexible

Michael came up with the trip motto of Be Flexible.  He encouraged the kids in flexibility when we had to change plans, which is pretty much inevitable when dealing with both a family with 4 kids and nature. 

Michael’s wanted to visit Yellowstone since he did his elementary school state report on Wyoming, so this trip has been a long time coming for him.  Yellowstone sounded interesting to me, but I hadn’t actually formed an intention of visiting. 

I’m glad Michael had, though.  It’s amazing.  This is the Lamar Valley, which is in the northeast corner of Yellowstone.  It looks like the idyllic recreation of the Old West, but it’s not a recreation at all.  Well, I guess in some ways it is:  wolves were hunted out of Yellowstone a long time ago, and were recently reintroduced.  They live mostly in the Lamar Valley. 

Can you see the bison dotting the landscape?  We also saw pronghorns (a type of antelope).  There were people who’d been out since 6 a.m. watching for wolves.  I’m not sure they’d seen any this particular morning.

The craziest landscape changes happen within Yellowstone.  Lamar Valley, meet Norris Geyser Basin, where things bubble, smoke, and spew.  Not much wildlife here.  It’s a crazy and amazing landscape.

Apparently, the first descriptions written about Yellowstone were published as fiction.  You can see why. 

At the beginning of the hike that took us up this hillside, it was raining.  By the end, we could take off jackets and fleeces.

And things are still changing.  The geyser behind the girls here used to erupt every three minutes.  Because of an earthquake a few years ago, it now erupts continuously. 

An entire hot lake.  You can see it steaming.  The bacteria that like that temperature of water are what make it that color.  Bizarre doesn’t begin to describe some of the sights here.

And then you have the fun that people have had there.  This is the Old Faithful Inn.  It’s a pretty spectacular bit of architecture!

And if you thought funky steaming, bubbling, craziness wasn’t enough, Yellowstone throws in a beautiful canyon – the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone – to be sure you don’t leave unimpressed.  The picture up above looks like we’re posing in front of a painted canvas, but I can assure you that we were very much there.

Incredible!  One begins to get an idea about why the place is called Yellowstone, too.

We got to see an osprey’s nest.  They nest in the canyon and eat fish from the river.  The reason we noticed this one is that we saw one of the parents swoop from on high to get to home base.  Can you see it there on the rock pillar? 

The canyon continues on. 

I mentioned that we all made lists of things we’d like to do next time.  Michael, poor guy, would have loved to fit a whole bunch more in on this trip, but the baby needed her nap and the kids needed a fairly reasonable bedtime after all the activity of the day.  Despite his instinct to go, go, go, he took the trip motto to heart and was flexible. 

 

So maybe there will be a next time.  And maybe next time we’ll see more, hike more, get up earlier, stay up later.  Or maybe not.  We’ll just have to be flexible. 

Yellowstone’s many moods

The Yellowstone trip provided a great opportunity for observing the moods of nature through many different natural features:  wildlife, geothermal features, and children.  Simeon, normally fairly buoyant of disposition, sometimes seemed a bit…something…during our time in Yellowstone.

Just before the trip, he unearthed this hat that had belonged to my grandfather.  I think that my brother asked me to hold it for him when we were in Michigan last fall, and I somehow ended up taking it home.  Simeon has now claimed it…Rob may or may not get it back. 

Of course, on a road trip, there are the inevitable questions like, “Are we there yet?” and, “Are we almost there?”  Our first day’s rest stop for lunch was not quite halfway to our destination in Idaho, a fact that daunted our fearless travelers quite a bit.  But Sim managed to keep his cool and race around to get some exercise.

For some reason, though, the first morning at Yellowstone, he did NOT want to be photographed.  I could get side shots or top-of-the-head shots, but not face shots.  Why?  It’s still a mystery.

A side shot of the younger half of our children.  They were both enjoying the hot springs, but Sim was not enjoying our attempts to memorialize his visit there.And then, suddenly, he decided to go ahead and get on in this photo…? 

A lovely couple we encountered on this hike took our family photo.  It was only at the last moment that Simeon decided he’d be in it, which is why he’s somewhat off to the side.  I’m beginning to wonder if someone told him about the old idea that photography steals one’s soul. 

Michael and Sim liked to have pictures of the boys taken at regular intervals.  What better place than the petrified tree?   Apparently there’s a hike that leads to a petrified forest, too, but we’ll have to save that one for when we can take a hike without the petrified (with terror) 7-year-old.  Maybe when she’s older she’ll be a bit more willing to venture a bit on trails in the woods?

Sometimes Simeon was wildly enthusiastic about having his photo taken.  I’m not quite sure what this was even about, but it was pretty fun, I can tell.

 

One day we took a stagecoach ride, which was interesting and fun.  There’s a guy riding shotgun (well, in this, he was taking the picture for us, so you can’t actually see him) who regales tourists with stories about the landscape, history, and wildlife around them on the ride.  Our guide told some jokes that Simeon loves.  For example:  “Do you see that snow up on the mountain?  We call that Indian snow.  You know why?  Because there’s Apache here and Apache there.” 

Sim didn’t get the joke at first, but when we explained it, he absolutely loved it.  If you see him anytime soon, you might hear it. 

Tess, on the other hand, slept through most of the stagecoach ride…

We passed by the marmot hotel,  which is what the stagecoach staff call an enormous pile of rocks on the hillside, because a whole ton of yellow-bellied marmots live there.  They’re pretty cute.

On our way out, Sim didn’t see them, but on the way back, he did – much to our relief, because he got pretty upset when he was the only one not to see certain wildlife.  We even saw baby marmots.  Cute! 

The Norris Geyser Basin was pretty awesome.  And stinky.  Simeon loved the sulfur smell, he said it reminded him of eggs.  Above you can see him avoiding the camera again; those are his shoes to the side of me on the bench. 

Minutes later, however, he was more than happy to pose with hot springs and a steam vent behind him.  Why the change?  The mystery remains.

Simeon actually slept more than Tess in the car.  There were a couple of days that he took two naps, which he hasn’t done in years.  Of course, there were late nights and lots of activity during the day, so it wasn’t too strange that he would succumb to the white noise and gentle motion of the car.

The mud pots were striking and Sim’s favorite geothermal feature.  This one has a huge bowl of mud around it that has built up from the mud bubbles bursting and flinging mud for so long.  Crazy!  They make lots of inappropriate noises and they stink, both excellent reasons for small boys to like them.  I said something about not wanting to sit down to dinner with a mud pot, and Simeon thought that was even more funny than the Indian snow joke, and repeated it even more frequently.

We all thought it was totally interesting how certain geothermal areas would be barren wastelands of hot springs and steam vents with no life around them, and others would have moss, grass, bushes, and trees all over the place.  Speculation as to the reason kept us busy for a long time.

More mud pots.  They have something of a hypnotic effect…watching the mud bubble, bubble, bubble. 

We also spent a fair amount of time speculating on wildlife – the scat, of course, but also on certain rub marks we noticed on lots of trees, and why there were lots of downed trees in certain areas, and what on EARTH the bison and elk thought they were doing, wandering around certain geyser basins. 

Sim’s ideas were very creative, when we could prevent his sisters from interrupting and saying, “No, Sim, it couldn’t have been that, because [insert her own creative idea here].”  Since half the fun was letting everyone try out a theory, this was annoying.  We did end up reaching an agreement about how to listen to different theories without needing to bash anyone else’s into the ground.  Simeon continued floating his, despite his sisters’ attempts at correction.

Bubbling mud is cool.

Each of us has his or her own list of things we want to do when we go back to Yellowstone some day.  Being the first to see wildlife is high on Sim’s list, since he didn’t get to be the one to call out about new wildlife too often.  (Of course, this was partly because he didn’t pay much attention to what was going on outside the car window as we were driving.)  Visiting more stinky things is also on his list.  I hope we get the chance go back and work on those lists.

Learn to be cautious around wildlife

…from Naomi.  Naomi enjoyed our trip to Yellowstone. Well, she didn’t like the carsickness.  But she liked almost everything else.  Unfortunately for Naomi, we watched a National Geographic video about Yellowstone last February.  She latched on to the section about the grizzly attack.  (Thanks for the family friendly movie, National Geographic!  Bear attacks, sheesh!)  She did not want to go after that, although we convinced her.  But then, we got into the park and saw all the signs warning to stay 25 yards from wildlife (Elk are DANGEROUS!  Bison are DANGEROUS!) and her fears generalized from bears to all largish animals.

We stopped at the Market before our trip to get some fish.  Naomi liked the pig. 

On this hike, we saw ground squirrels and lots of different scat, besides this cool waterfall.  Naomi enjoyed that.  Ground squirrels don’t have any signs about their danger, so we figured that we were safe.

The petrified tree – covered millions (millions!) of years ago by a volcanic explosion – was interesting, although getting the idea of millions of years into my own head is nearly impossible, so I’m not sure how much of it the kids absorbed.  But petrified trees pose no danger, so this was a fun little detour.

Naomi enjoyed seeing wildlife from the safety of the car.  This elk popped up from behind a rise as we were driving, and then he walked along near the car, crossed the road behind us, and continued on his way.  Cool!  He’s the only antlered elk we saw up close.  You can still see the velvet on his antlers.

This encounter, though, pushed Naomi’s limits of wildlife viewing.  We got out at a bear jam (traffic jam caused by a bear sighting) and walked along the road to see the bears.  There were two, but I was so busy watching that I forgot to take pictures of both bears.  I think the only reason this encounter was remotely acceptable to Naomi was that there were lots of other people there, many hefting lots of photography equipment.  She did end up enjoying herself, and talked about how cool it was to see the bear. 

Bison jams are usually caused, not by bison sightings, but by bison being on or really near the road, like this one.  Our first close encounter like this, Naomi said, “Dad!  I’m not 25 feet away!  I’m not 25 feet away!”  (That’s the distance they tell you to stay from wildlife in Yellowstone.)  Once she understood that there was a bit of a difference between being on foot and in the car, she calmed down.

 

We got a close look at a coyote while on our stagecoach ride.  Naomi didn’t seem to mind this guy, but we were in the stagecoach and he was the size of a medium-sized dog, so maybe that’s why.  He was clearly stalking something, not deterred even by two stagecoaches passing right by him. 

Geothermal features were exciting and not dangerous, as far as Naomi was concerned.  She enthusiastically walked the trails through geyser basins and mud pot areas, exclaiming over the colors, smells, and sounds.  Reading the warning signs here didn’t seem to worry her much, perhaps because staying on the path seems like something more in her control than staying 25 feet from wildlife, or staying out of the path of bears.  In any case, we enjoyed her eager exploration on these outings.

Waterfalls (even when the weather was 34 degrees and windy – whew!) are always acceptable.  This particular morning was really, really chilly and windy, but we wanted to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, so we’d planned to drive along and get out at particular viewpoints to see it.  We were glad we hadn’t planned a hike, because it was – did I mention? – really cold and windy.  However, Naomi was game to check it out.

Waterfalls with rainbows are even more acceptable!  Again, despite cold and wind.  Happily, I’d packed both fleeces and jackets for everyone, so we were able to get to the viewpoints in a state of some warmth.  Michael even had his gloves with him. 

But when a hike brought us a sight of this awesome moose, Naomi nearly lost it.  Not when we saw the moose, but when both the moose and our family continued into the forest near each other.  Naomi began crying about staying 25 feet away and wanting to head back.  We did decide to go around the loop the opposite direction, but then Naomi was scared of bears and wolves.  We’re not altogether sure why it was more scary than the waterfall hike from a few days before, but she was pretty upset.  I tried to reassure her that no bear (or wolf) in its right mind would stay put when it heard us coming (between the crying on her part and the singing of Clementine from the rest of us – hard to do at high altitudes).  This did not help.

The rest of us were totally excited about seeing a moose – the only one we saw on our trip – because they’re pretty rare.  This one looked like a gangly adolescent moose.  We watched him for a while, then he went into the woods.  When we came back from our hike, he was walking across the meadow in full view of the road, causing a moose jam. 

Once we’d gotten through the hike and nearly to the car, Naomi was able to settle down and enjoy using the binoculars (but she and Sim pronounce it vinoculars – totally cute) to look at the moose, which was now many more than 25 yards away, so rendered no longer scary to Naomi.

I think Naomi really enjoyed Yellowstone, with just a few patches of fear thrown in to make things interesting. 

Road trip baby

Everything became a telephone, even her foot.  Michael admired her flexibility and had to capture it for posterity.

Going into the road trip, I thought that probably our biggest difficulty would be Tess in the car.  It turns out that either I’m good at predicting my children, or I had a self-fulfilling prophecy on my hands.  Keeping Tess entertained and happy challenged us at times.  I’m not really complaining, because even the difficulties we had weren’t that difficult. 

It definitely helped that we visited our friends on the way, so we drove a day, spent two nights with friends, and then drove on.  On the way back, we followed the same plan.  Our friends were very welcoming and hospitable, and had kids (including a baby, Tess’s favorite), so their home was kid-friendly and had toys in it, besides the human entertainment.  They also had a couple of cats, a couple of lambs, and cows in the fields next door.  These interesting points helped Tess forget the long hours in the car the day before, when her parents, for reasons that nobody sane could ever understand, strapped her in and wouldn’t stop every 15 minutes. 

Snacks were often served in plastic cups.  An unfortunate possibility is that Tess may have learned that boredom can be solved by eating potato chips.  Perhaps she’ll unlearn this again before long, since we rarely have potato chips.

Luckily for us, Tess enjoys music.  She doesn’t prefer CDs, though, she prefers live music, sung by her family for her.  This means that, during her tired times, her family spent lots of time singing Clementine, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Roll on Columbia, John Henry, America the Beautiful, Immaculate Mary, Battle Hymn of the Republic, and rounds of One Bottle of Pop, Jubilate Deo, and My Paddle’s Keen and Bright.  I’m sure we sang more.  Oh!  Of course:  Happy Birthday, one of Tess’s all-time favorites.  As well as Old MacDonald and I Love my Rooster.

Old sunglasses of Mama’s provide entertainment for the long haul.

This brought back many memories for me, since when I was a child, we took lots of road trips. This happened before 6-CD-changers in the car, so we’d alternate between singing songs as a family, reading, and complaining that someone was in our space.  The good ol’ days.  It turns out, though, that I haven’t passed on some of the songs that we always sang on road trips, so I had to either sing them myself or skip them. I did share the Kingston Trio’s song Tijuana Jail.  Michael found that amusing for some reason.  I also sang Charlie and the MTA, which they’d heard before, but it turns out that Naomi finds it depressing.  I decided not to move on to Tom Dooley or Bad Man’s Blunder.  My dad was a fan of the Kingston Trio, and I guess I didn’t ask quite as many questions about song lyrics as a kid as my kids do. 

Tess learned the words elk, bison, moose, marmot, waterfall, and rainbow on this trip.  We turned her seat around so that she could see out the window when we passed by wildlife.  When asked, “Can you see the _____________ [fill in wildlife or natural wonder], Tessie?”  she would almost always reply, with appropriate awe in her voice, “Oh, yeah!”  Ridiculously cute. 

Nature provides the opportunity to learn “waterfall” and “rainbow” in one stop.

Tess spent some time in the Ergo on Michael’s back on hikes and on boardwalks through the geothermal areas.  She didn’t appreciate this much, at least not when we first put her in.  But then she’d get into the walk and look at stuff or sing with Michael and be fine for a while. 

   Geysers still look cool from the Ergo.

Even though she sometimes complained about certain aspects of the trip, others she enthusiastically embraced.  She never objected to wearing a hat when necessary.

She ate well and didn’t fuss at the various places we stopped for food – rest stops, restaurants, picnic spots by the side of the road.     

Another favorite activity she developed was Swap the Bahdoo-Bahdoo.  Bahdoo-bahdoo is the Tessism for water bottle.  She discerned no reason that each person should have his own assigned bottle.  Clearly the bottles brought were meant to give her a diversity of experiences in water drinking.

Sometimes this game irritated her fellow passengers, but they quickly learned that the greater game of Keeping Tess Happy in the Car was more important than Keeping One’s Own Water Bottle to Oneself. 

She did pretty well napping in the car.  Although Sim did better.  He took more naps – and longer ones! – than she did, but at least she napped.  The only day she skipped was our last leg of driving.  I think she planned it that way so that it would be the last thing we remember, which might mean we’d think twice about another long road trip any time soon.

Hannah, Naomi, and Sim did a bunch of entertaining of Tess, too.  Naomi took the last 45 minutes of the last day and had Tess laughing uncontrollably – MUCH better than crying uncontrollably, which is what it had looked like it would be for a while.   

Tess did her fair share of entertaining, too.  Here she models a beach towel dress that she made herself.  Stunning!  They’ll be all the rage this season.

I have to admit that, even though I did worry about taking Tess on this trip, she handled it well, and so did the rest of us when it got a bit tough with her.  And her cuteness at the other times far outweighed the difficulties in the car.  I mean, when you’ve got someone saying, “Bishon!” in her enthusiastic baby voice, or calling out, “Waterfall!” during Old Faithful’s eruption, it’s pretty darn cute.  Tess is really such a sweetie, and we all love her dearly.

I’m not saying I’ll be scheduling another long road trip soon, though.