Moments to remember: Our big summer vacation trip

We had a great time on a 10 day road trip to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park.

I've had our big summer vacation planned for a whole year already. We were initially supposed to meet our friends from California and stay at a group campsite while we were there. However they canceled on us, and so it ended up just being us. Thankfully I had made backup accommodation arrangements just in case :)

We stopped at Thermopolis, Wyoming the first night. We stayed at the Best Western Plus Plaza Hotel and it was great! It was a walking distance from the Hot Springs State Park (home of the world's largest mineral hot spring) and it has a small hot springs spa in the hotel itself. We smelled like sulfur for at least for 2 days after our dip in it.
http://www.thermopolis.com/

The next day, we drove up to the town of Cody, which is the eastern entrance into Yellowstone. On the way, we stopped to admire the Petroglyphs at the Legend Rock Site. So amazing to think that those drawings on the rock cliffs have been there for thousands of years. It was in the middle of nowhere. So I imagine how it will be like to ride a horse for hours just to get there to make these drawings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_Rock

We were planning to stay at Yellowstone National Park for 4 nights, and so we decided to drive an extra 3.5 hours and enter the park through its NE entrance itself. By doing so, we get to drive on the All-American Highway called Beartooth Highway. It was an amazing drive, but coming from Colorado, where not too much different from some drives we have done here in Colorado (Driving to Pagosa Springs!). I think the impact was also lessened by the fact that there was so much snow on the ground when we were at high altitudes. There is even a summer skiing area there!
http://www.beartoothhighway.com/

We got to our campsite at Canyon Village Campground and there was snow on the ground. The maintenance people had dug a area of 11x10 for our tent, but we were expecting a 12x12 tent pad. We had a large tent (16x10), which we already had to modify to fit into the 12x12. Aiks! Since we checked-in later because of our longer drive that morning, we had no other tent sites to choose from.
Poor hubby had to borrow a shovel from the camp office and make the tent site bigger. Then we had to set up our tent in the rain. Oh no! Not a good start to the trip.

But even with the forecast of 30% chance of rain for the next couple of days, we did not get rained on. I got a lesson from Kathryn one day on being optimistic.
"Mommy, 30% chance of rain is very lower. It is a 70% chance of no rain and that is a higher chance!"

And she was right, of course ;)

We had a great time the rest of the trip. It got really cold at night and early morning, but we were warm and snug in our sleeping bags. Then it would warm up to high 60s or low 70s. At such high altitude (average of 7000 ft), you can certainly feel the burn from the sun.

Yellowstone is amazing....... We only spent 4 nights there, and we could definitely have spent more. We plan to got back again when the kids are teenagers.

Established in 1872, Yellowstone National Park is America's first national park. Located in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bison, and elk. Preserved within Yellowstone National Park are Old Faithful and a collection of the world's most extraordinary geysers and hot springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Family photo at Midway Geyser area, north of Old Faithful

The girls with the Grand Prismatic Spring behind them.

Watching Old Faithful erupting. We spent almost 4.5 hours just at the Old Faithful area alone. Kathryn participated in the Young Scientist program, which she enjoyed immensely. And she got her Young Scientist patch after!