What We Did While Jeremy Was Away

After we got back from Montana, Jeremy headed out again for two more fairs.  Since those fairs were closer and since the kids and I had things going on that week, we didn't go with him.
Here are some of the things we did while he was away:

Built forts

Said Hello and Goodbye to some old friends

Did some cleaning

There were more things we did, but these are just a few.
It was a good time.

What We Did to Celebrate on our Trip

We did some celebrating on our Montana/Yellowstone trip.
July 31 was Harry Potter's Birthday.  The kids made Harry Potter jokes several times during the day.  I don't have any pictures of that.
I do have a picture from Wiggle Your Toes Day, August 6.

We were so busy, we didn't do as much with some of those holidays that fell during our trip.
It was a really good trip, though.

What We Did at the Top of the World

When we left Yellowstone National Park to head to Jeremy's second fair, we decided to travel out the Northeast entrance of the park since we were headed to the Eastern part of Montana.  We were very happy with our choice.
We drove the Beartooth Highway.  We went up and up and up, then we went down and down and down.  It was so gorgeous up there.  Alpine meadows and snow and lakes.  Think Heidi meets The Sound of Music.

In fact at one point we even had mountain goats cross the road in front of us.  It was like The Three Billy Goats Gruff, though one was a billy goat, one was a nanny, and one was a kid.

Oh, it was beautiful.  We drove up into the clouds.

As we drove down the other side, the scenery was much different.

You could see where glaciers had carved away the valley.  So many switchbacks to get up and down.
Oh, it was so wonderful.  It was like being at the top of the world.  There was even an area on the way up the mountain that had the name of Top of the World.
Even though it took longer to drive along that highway instead of the freeway to the north, it was so worth it with what we got to experience.
It was a great drive.

Eclipsalypse

Road Trip!

What did you do to celebrate the Great American Eclipse of 2017?

Catch of the Day

You know those big windmills you pass when you're driving in certain areas?  Check out the size of just one of those blades seen along the ground.  Wow.

What We Did at Yellowstone- Day 3

Day 3 at Yellowstone National Park was shorter as we each had to go our own ways- Jeremy's family heading toward home and our family heading toward the other Montana fair.
We spent most of our time around the Mammoth Hot Springs area.  We checked out the visitor's center and had lunch together then said Goodbye to each other.

Again it was a nice drive out of the park.

It was a good third day at Yellowstone.

What We Did at Yellowstone- Day 2

Day 1 of our Yellowstone trip was mostly searching for wildlife.  Day 2 was more on the geologic side.  Of course we wanted to see Old Faithful.  You can't go to Yellowstone and not see Old Faithful.

We saw plenty of other geysers and hot springs as well.  Again there was so much to see.  Some areas were too crowded so we saw some things as we drove by, but we went on a few scenic drives and were rewarded by what we saw.

We did stop at Mammoth Hot Springs to walk around a few of the hot springs as our first stop in the morning.  So cool... or hot.

We saw swallows nesting in the mineral deposits.  We saw a killdeer walking around the lower areas of water.  I'm guessing it was probably cooled off enough by then.

It was so neat.

We stopped by the National Park Ranger Museum.

The couple there who were explaining things to us were so friendly and informative.  They even gave the kids stickers.

And this is what happens when your brother-in-law hands you his camera and says to take pictures with it:

At the end of the day on our way out there was major traffic backed up because there were bison all over the road and on the sides of the road.  Luckily we were stuck next to some bubbling mud pots which we were able to watch while waiting for the bison.

Driving in Yellowstone is also so scenic.  I mentioned before that there are so many different types of places around.  We did drive around flat areas with meandering rivers.

We drove through canyons with rapids and waterfalls.

We drove by rivers and ponds and lakes.

We stopped at one place called Fishing Bridge which is clearly marked "Closed to Fishing."

While there we watched a beaver swim by with a big branch in its mouth.  They do exist.  This one was smaller than those we saw in the Pacific Northwest last year.  I blogged about those on July 10, 2016.

Looking back at some of our pictures, there were also river otters swimming around.  They were farther away so the pictures aren't that great, but we could definitely tell there were otters.
We were driving through mountains as it was getting darker and we did see a black bear.  Unfortunately it was too dark for the pictures to turn out but it was definitely a black bear.  That was fun.

It was a good second day at Yellowstone.