Wild Adventures with 5 kids, Part 1. Yellowstone NP.

At some point, we decided that having children wasn't going to stop us from going on adventures. We went to Zion National Park when Byron was 3 months old and have tried to keep it up since. It is always crazy and it is always worth it. We have found that the two go together and we must get out there and experience the crazy and stressful to enjoy the beautiful.  Our latest adventure was to Yellowstone NP and Grand Teton NP.  We were in the parks for 7 nights total. It wasn't long enough. Either park could easily take a week or more by itself. Here are the Yellowstone pics and I will share the GTNP pics in the next post.

The Beartooth Highway enters the northeast corner of Yellowstone and was called the most beautiful drive in America by Charles Kuralt. We don't dispute it, though it's awfully hard to choose when America has so very many gorgeous drives. 

Me, on top of the world on the Beartooth Highway, which reaches almost 11,000 feet at its highest point. 

We spotted a group of mountain goats walking in a line, so we parked and hopped out to see them more closely. Doesn't this look like a scene from The Sound of Music?

Someone got a ride from Daddy. June was possibly our least complaining adventurer and hiked many miles like a champ.

Obligatory bison-induced traffic jam photo. Can't leave Yellowstone without one!

We stayed in Grant Village Campground on Loop I, right next to Yellowstone Lake. This was a great loop to stay in as you can access the lakeshore by foot in less than a minute. Grant Village is about an hour drive from both the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Old Faithful. It's also less than an hour to Grand Teton. 

The fantastic thing about kids who wake up early is that you get to explore in the golden hour when few people are awake. Yellowstone and "few people" are not usually in the same sentence, so I cherished my early morning photo walks on the lake. 

Old Faithful Inn, as seen from the boardwalk trail.

Grand Prismatic Spring trail. 

Frog hunting (they did find one!) at Grant Village Campground.

The pelicans were also up early. 

Site 312 in the I loop. This was a great place for our family because we were right next to the bathroom, which made it much easier for littles. 

The three musketeers and I checked out the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone while Daddy took a horse ride with the kids at the Canyon location. 

We found the skies to be absolutely incredible. 

Byron on Casino and Ruth on Cheyenne after their 1 hour trail ride. This was their favorite  part of the trip, along with becoming Junior Rangers and getting their patches.

 We managed to have some relatively quiet moments at a very busy park as you can see in most of the photos. However, here is a great example of what the roads are like if you a) are near the main attractions b) are behind someone who spotted a moose/bison/imaginary animal and stopped in the middle of the road to take photos or c) are caught in construction traffic.