Island Park and Yellowstone

Last weekend ago we went on a trip to Island Park with Z's family. I'm not sure if I can express how excited I was to go up there again. My family had a cabin up there when I was growing up, and we went up there a LOT. I haven't been in over 15 years, so I was excited to see it all again, and test my memory on where things where. We stayed in a cute cabin built by Susan's Great Uncle in the Mack's Inn area. After arriving Friday afternoon, we hung out, went for a walk, Noah went fishing for the first time, we had dinner, and crashed.

Saturday morning we headed out to Big Springs. The water is still amazingly clear, the scenery is beautiful, and it's just amazing to see how much water is pumping out of the ground all on it's own. Sadly there weren't any fish or otters, and there were about 5 million mosquitoes.





Later that day we found that we had some time on our hands, so we figured we'd drive up to West Yellowstone (about 20 min) and wander the town and see the touristy shops. Noah fell asleep on the way, so we decided we might as well keep driving and go into the park and let him see Old Faithful. As we pulled into the parking lot we could see the geyser spurting up over the treetops. How's that for really bad timing? So we went into the gift shop, got some drinks and new sunglasses for Noah, then hung around on the boardwalk for the next 90 minutes waiting for Old Faithful to go again.

Typically touristy cheesy photo that I absolutely love.

Noah took this picture

I've seen Old Faithful a dozen or so times, and I still think it's amazing, and even more so to watch through the eyes of my three year old.

When we got back to the cabin we had hotdogs and s'mores over the fire. Sadly the mosquitoes were out in force again, so we mostly just cooked the food outside and ate everything inside.

Have I ever told you how much Noah loves Auntie Lisha? They're best friends. Seriously.

After dinner we got loaded up and headed over to Dan and Krystal's house in Victor. When we got there we got the boys to bed, then stayed up until about 2am talking with D and K. In the morning we had breakfast, played, watched the boys run and run and run, had some lunch, then headed home. The drive out of Victor and into and through Swan Valley is absolutely beautiful. Last time we drove it, there was a ton of snow covering the landscape, it was still pretty, but nothing compared to the greener version. It was so pretty we took pictures from the car while we were driving.