We have been traveling for one week as of today!!!
❤️🇺🇸❤️🛣❤️🇺🇸❤️
On Day 7, we woke up on our tiny postage stamp of a “campsite”. It was a rough night, but the adventures of the day quickly erased the memory of our unfortunate campground choice!
Here is a quick bit of unsolicited advice & a mini-rant… If you are traveling with a camper any bigger than a pop-up, do not stay at Bridge Bay Campground in Yellowstone. It was a nightmare! The sites are essentially tiny paved pull-offs from the camp road. Our RV is only 12 feet wide, when fully extended, and we could not open the slide when parked there. Long story short, we adjusted our plans for the following nights in the park and were very pleased with our campsite at the lovely Grant Village Campground in Yellowstone. It gets two enthusiastic thumbs up 👍🏼 👍🏼
Back to the good stuff, which basically started at 7am and did not end until bedtime. After leaving Bridge Bay and driving along the foggy roads of Yellowstone, not even 5 minutes outside the campground, we encountered our first bison!! 🦬
It was epic and made Doug’s heart so happy. Spotting a bison in the wild was on his bucket list. Little did we know that this lone bison would not even come close to being the highlight of our day… but I’ll get to that in a bit!
Our first stop of the day was at The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone – visiting both the Upper and Lower Falls. The weather was perfection and the hike was super family-friendly. The trail was mostly paved and almost entirely flat. We arrived before 8am and there were only a few other hikers out there with us. By 11am when we finished, the parking lot was packed. Doug gets kudos for making the call to get up and get going!
The second stop of the day stunk. No really, it smelled horrible. 🤢 But as long as we remembered to breathe through our mouths, we could make it work! Surprisingly, when we arrived at Norris Geyser Basin we had no trouble at all finding parking, despite having our 31 foot RV.
The sights and sounds of this place are incredibly difficult to describe. We were discussing it as a family during our hike around the loops of the basin. A few of the ways we would try to describe it are:
• water boiling on the stove just before it is time for you to drop the pasta in
• the sound of a generator unsuccessfully trying to start up
• a steam train chugging hard to get up a mountain, but without the clickety-clack on the rails
The other amazing thing about this place was the naturally occurring colors. The greens and blues were something not even Crayola would be able to replicate! The photos I’ve shared below have not been retouched by a filter or any other means. The complexity in the unique combination of science and art can only explained in one word – God.
As we were leaving and processing what we had just witnessed, Doug made a comment and I pondered it for a moment before responding out loud. He said, “The interesting thing about Yellowstone is the beauty is not in the mountains, but in the valleys.” Of course, he was referring to the physical valleys and such things as the waterfalls and geysers. The intention behind his comment was merely a comparison of the East Coast mountain ranges along the Appalachian Trail to the vastly different appeal of Yellowstone. However, my mind quickly went to scripture.
From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
Psalm 61:2 (NIV)
We often find ourselves praising God when things are going well. However, when things seem bleak and we’re in a proverbial valley of life, that is when we are forced to stop relying on ourselves and instead turn to God. It is in the valley that we are able to see the beauty of our relationship with Him. The mountains are an obvious thing of beauty, but what if we also viewed the valleys as a beautiful opportunity, as well.
#4SweetsAdventure 