Anyway, Ryan's mom invited us for a quick family trip during Labor Day Weekend to go see the Bar J Wranglers perform in Jackson Hole, WY on Saturday night (a cowboy singing group where you come and eat a big "cowboy" meal and then enjoy their singing performance). Since she knew I've been really wanting to make a trip out to Yellowstone this year, she booked us a night in a suite at a beautiful lodge right there in Jackson Hole so we could make a day trip to Yellowstone on Sunday!
WOOHOO! I've really been wanting to take advantage of the many beautiful areas that surround us here in Idaho, so I was way excited to finally get to see Yellowstone! And more importantly....see some animals!
Our first stop was at the Bar J Ranch on Saturday afternoon/evening. This is a family regular for Ryan and his mom (they've been numerous times!) and only my second time...we came out and saw them last summer before we moved out to Idaho. It's such a fun show. Before the show, Ryan and I walked around and found a little "outdoor museum"....and we had a little fun with it!
(This is Ryan outside the lodge, in front of the ski lift area...and another of him near the restaurant where we had breakfast in the lodge)
WOOHOO! I've really been wanting to take advantage of the many beautiful areas that surround us here in Idaho, so I was way excited to finally get to see Yellowstone! And more importantly....see some animals!
Our first stop was at the Bar J Ranch on Saturday afternoon/evening. This is a family regular for Ryan and his mom (they've been numerous times!) and only my second time...we came out and saw them last summer before we moved out to Idaho. It's such a fun show. Before the show, Ryan and I walked around and found a little "outdoor museum"....and we had a little fun with it!
(Ryan's growling face to the bear)
(Giving the bear a little TLC, due to all the persecution he was facing)
(Ryan at the Bar J Wranglers, waiting for the horse wagon to come pick us up for a ride around the Outdoor Museum we just walked through ourselves :)
The next morning (Sunday) we woke up and headed up through the Grand Teton National Park on our way up to Yellowstone. At one point, there were tons of cars stopped, so we decided to stop and see what was going on, and found this....
A moose and her baby! How awesome! This was by far, the highlight of my trip. We just stood there watching them for about 10 minutes. I guess they had been in this pond for over an hour while people kept stopping to watch them. Very cool.
We drove past this....The Grand Tetons...on our way up to Yellowstone...
...and saw all the highlights of the west side of Yellowstone....
We lucked out and walked up to Old Faithful about 5 minutes before she went off! No waiting for us...it goes off about every hour.
I was hoping (more like wishful thinking) that I would see a bear in Yellowstone, but all we really saw were the staple Bison :) They were still really cool to watch though. Massive beasts...
And just as I was complaining to Ryan that you always see these pictures of Bison stopping traffic at Yellowstone, but we hadn't seen any yet, and I thought that was just a fluke thing that photographers happened to see every once in a while...we pulled up to a back up of cars. At first, we were all assuming it was because of the section of road that they had closed for construction. As we slowly crawled by, we were pleasantly surprised (or not so pleasantly, as was the case for Marji...my mother-in-law...who was driving...) with this huge guy just cruising down the road by himself in the WRONG LANE (going head-on TOWARDS traffic). Boy, was I glad we just had to drive past him instead of stare at him coming face on to our vehicle!
As Marji was panicking as we had to drive past him, she tells me she is NOT stopping for pictures :) And as her driver side window went up as we got closer to him, mine went down a crack to try to get a close up on him...and I just caught the "tail" end :)
Yellowstone was absolutely beautiful, and I can't wait to go back again sometime next year, and hopefully see more of the park! My family needs to come visit me so we can go together...hint, hint...
On the way back to Rexburg, we went through the small town of Island Park. Ryan's Grandpa Price helped found this city when Marji was young. They were one of the first families to build a cabin and live there, and then Marji's dad was a realtor for the area. On top of that, just a short ways from their house, her dad built THIS store/gas station:
Marji worked in this store (along with her siblings) when she was young, but it had been so long since she had been here, that she couldn't remember the exact location...but she COULD remember that it was an A-Frame building. So we would stop at all of these gas stations along the way that had an A-Frame to see if it was the old store her dad owned. She kept running inside and saying if she went inside, she would know whether or not it was THE store. I wondered what she was looking for, and FINALLY, after one stop, she came out and said it was the right one! We went inside, and she pointed to these, and said THIS is how she knew it was the right store:
Her dad had put those looping ropes up in the store. It was so neat to see the ropes, and associate it with Ryan's Grandpa. He passed away when Ryan was young, so I never met him, but have heard wonderful (and funny) stories about him. I had always wanted to have my own Grandpa, and hoped that my husband would have one to share with me (mine both died before I was born and one immediately after I was born). While I never got to have my Grandpa, it's been fun to learn about Ryan's, and was even more fun to see things that he actually touched and created himself. Marji was so nostalgic in this store...it was fun for her to reminisce about the old days in there with her family. I was excited for her.
We also got to go drive past her old house/cabin behind the store. I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of the house, but she told us of some fun stories, like the time a bear had wandered up to their cabin, her dad tried to scare it away I think by hitting his nose with a piece of wood or something, and instead, the bear got angry and decided to come up the steps at him! Luckily, his gun wasn't too far away, so he shot the bear dead right on the steps! Yikes...
The short weekend trip was a blast, and I can't wait to go again next year! Crossing my fingers I'll see a bear catching fish next time ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment