The Westwood Trail: Summer 2012 Yellowstone Trip

This summer I was supposed to go to North Carolina for work for two weeks. I don't like leaving my kids for that long when I go on these work trips, so I was looking for a way to take them with me. My mom and Dustin's sister Haley, volunteered to go with me to watch the kids while I was working. We had it all worked out for my mom to come the first week and fly home on the weekend, then Haley and her son Jax would come that weekend and stay the rest of the time. So, since it was going to work out so well,of course things had to change. Due to budget issues my trip got canceled. Haley had already taken the time off and wanted to still go on some sort of vacation so I suggested we do a week long road trip. She chose Yellowstone so that's where we went.

We left on Sunday morning and drove to Rexburg. We stayed at a nice hotel there and went to Bear World on Monday. Bear World was AWESOME. I highly recommend it. We saw a bunch of bears and everyone's favorite part was bottle feeding the cubs. We stayed Monday night in Rexburg then got up Tuesday morning and headed for Yellowstone. We drove to Yellowstone and did the Northern Loop. We stopped in Warm Springs for lunch and saw wildlife. Then we finished the loop and headed to West Yellowstone, Montana to stay the night. That is a town I would like to spend more time in. It was such a fun place. Wednesday morning we got up and did the southern drive. We stopped at Old Faithful then headed south. We went through Jackson Hole and then down through Star Valley. I have decided that if I had a million dollars I would put a down payment on a place in Star Valley. That place is breathtaking. We spent Wednesday night in Montpelier Idaho. The next morning we went to Minetonka Cave then took our time going to Salt Lake. We stayed in Sandy. Friday morning we got up and went to The Living Planet Aquarium, then headed for Circlville. We got home around 6:00. The best part was that when we got home Dustin was there waiting. We were all anxious to be out of the car and to see Dustin. Saturday was the last day of the fair. I was glad we got to participate in the Saturday activities so I didn't have to miss all of it.

The trip was really nice. We didn't over plan anything we just stopped when ever we wanted to. It was a nice break from everything.

Here are a BUNCH of pictures, in no particular order

Dalley loved this bench. He saw it and said, "Hey, those are my cowboy buddies!"

I liked this arch

One of the bears at Bear World. We did the Curators Tour. They take you out on a truck and you get to feed all of the bears. It was worth it!

The big bad grizzly. He looks so cuddly

Dalley measuring up

In Rexburg we ate at Frontier Pies. They had the cutest decorations

Whit loves playing with straws

On one of the hikes in Yellowstone

My Camo Cutie

We bought the boys their own disposable cameras. I can't wait to get Dalley's camera developed to see the trip from Dalley's perspective

Petting zoo at Bear World

Hamming it up at one of the hot pots

Haley took Whit on the roller coaster. She thought she was pretty big stuff

Dalley loved this waterfall

Elk walking through the intersection at Warm Springs, inside the park

Feeding the cubs

This was my favorite part of the trip

Quite the show off

We drove a lot, the kids got pretty tired

By the river

Haley and I parked and walked up to this buffalo. We were probably within twenty feet of it. My heart was pounding the whole time. There was one silly guy who walked right up to him. They tell you not to get close to the wildlife

Bear World, you can tell by Dalley's red face that it was ho that day

In West Yellowstone we ate at a place called Bullwinkle's. Dalley loved it cause they had root beer in the bottle and they had a toy train track going along the ceiling and the train ran through constantly.

Stick em up

Our hotel in West Yellowstone. It was called the Stagecoach Inn. Across the street was the Westwood Motel. I was thinking we should have stayed there.

The place we stayed at in Montpelier was a bit of a dump. The carpet was kind of rough so Whitlee did the stink bug crawl to keep her knees off the floor.

Eating fresh raspberry ice cream in Bear Lake

As we were leaving Bear Lake, I spotted this little go-cart track. We stopped and let the boys ride around. They let Dalley ride with Jax. He was so excited.