Rain Rain Go Away, the Edson family wants to play

We got home from Crater Lake Friday, then Mike worked his 3 days and then we were off again!! This time, Yellowstone. And when a destination is that far (16 hours) I am usually a "lets just drive, it's so much faster and easier." But because we were going to be camping and due to new regulations something tells me a propane stove, a hatchet, pocket knives and such would all be frowned upon at the airport!! So instead of just making this a camping trip to Yellowstone, we decided to make it a full blown road trip. (Well with three little kids I don't know how full blown it actually was.) We drove to Boise, planning to see my brother and his family until they called to warn us of the flu that had pledged their house that night. We decided that a hotel would be our best bet. I just wasn't sure how fun camping would be with diarrhea and throwing up with no bathtub or laundry room. So the hotel was a great idea!! Then the next day we were off to Mike's best friend from High School Bryan's house. The kids had a blast swimming and riding the four wheelers, until we got chased in by the rain. And then all night Cari and I got to listening to Mike and Bryan's "stories" of "remember the time..." Yeah I could listed to that for days...NOT!!! Not only did we get to listen to them all night, I don't know how many times we have all heard these stories. Every time those two get together....yack, yack, yack about high school. Maybe it makes them feel young again remembering the good ol' days.
Our next destination was Yellowstone, with our friends from California, the Whites. We had a blast. Jake and Spence were totally excited about Old faithful and all the other 96 geysers and hot pools. See here they are anxiously awaiting the eruption of Old Faithful...can you see their excitement? OK I am totally kidding, Jake was totally unimpressed, quite a few times I heard the words, stupid and geysers in the same sentence. Actually he was a pretty good sport and so was Spencer (yes we did invite Spence this time. I think we wore poor Grams out!!) Our first night there a huge thunder storm rolled in and so we got to go out to dinner, there was no chance of a fire. After we got back, we put the kids to bed and the adults huddled around the propane lantern that was giving off heat to whatever was within 2 inches...needless to say we hit the sack early that night. The next day we hoped for the best and went exploring, we saw lots of good sights apparently the kids saw their own good sights, they must have found something good down there. We got to see lots of wild life. We saw Bison, deer, elk, coyotes (yeah big wup huh?) but no bears, I was sad :( Despite all the rain, we had a blast cuz we were with good friends, who live way to far away!! (Only if they were my neighbors then they wouldn't be too far though) The kids had a blast with their friends and were so sad to leave. Bless Kaylee's little heart, she always has a hard time saying good bye (I wonder were she gets it?) She cried and cried and I just held her in my arms and let her cry as much as she wanted, I don't know if it made her feel any better but I wasn't about to ask her to stop crying, it's the saddest thing to see her leave her very best friend in all the world, her sole mate, Naomi. Then there is the boys they don't care, whatever. They had a blast together as we all did!!! Even though it rained everyday and I didn't see my stinkin' bear, I had a fun!!! But really is it too much to ask to see a bear...really?
A couple of years ago we went to Yosemite, Mike promised I would get to see one there, "I have seen a bear every time I've been to Yosemite," says Mike. Well I have now gone to Yosemite twice and I never saw a bear!! "So maybe in Yellowstone I will," I thought, No such luck. On our way out of Yellowstone Mike was asking who had fun, what was your favorite part, yadda, yadda, yadda and I said I had fun minus the fact that I really just wanted to see a bear. I told him how I looked and looked through all the trees every time we were driving and nothing...moments later here we are driving down I-90 and I look over and guess what I see looking right at me, a bear cub. I screamed with excitement!!! No joke! Lucky for me and well I guess the rest of the passengers in the car, Mike saw it out of the corner of his eye and didn't freak out by my screaming and slam on his brakes or something and throwing us in the median!!! So yes you could say I was a little happy about that little experience! The rest of the drive back to Idaho was very uneventful, Thankfully because at times you could not see the road through all the RAIN!!!

To brake the drive up a little we stopped at a hotel about 6 hours from home and hit a little theme park, Silverwood, it's no Disneyland, but it was fun and the kids loved it. I think Mike was a little sad to see no Mickey Mouse or Donald, maybe next year honey!! All in all it was a great road trip and I can say it was our first and I guess maybe not the last? For sure not the last trip...

PS-Yellowstone has no bugs, not a single bug bite to report I am happy to say!! Oh and no I did not take that pic of the bear, found it on the good ol' world wide web!