6th and 7th Days - Absaroka Lodge outside of Yellowstone

We are back in internet/cell range! We had two days of complete blackout from phones, TV's and computers. But what beauty surrounded us! We stayed at a lodge only 12 miles outside of Yellowstone. They had an old-fashioned barbecue when we arrived, with all the guests (only 17 cabins total) and the staff ate beef stew, biscuits and corn on the cob around a campfire. The sky was clear and the weather was perfect!

This was the view from the campfire area. If you look closely you can see a "man's face" in the side of the mountain.

~ Bug that came along on the ride with us on the outside of the van ~

~ McKenna and Cassidy in the early morning waiting to ride a horse ~

~ Horsey wants food ~

~ Cassidy and McKenna coming back from their 2.5 hour ride (which included a campfire breakfast) ~ 

No, Chuck and I didn't go on the ride...we ate breakfast in the lodge. We thought it would be something special for McKenna and Cassidy to do on their own. They loved it! And the other riders (one family) told me how sweet our girls were. Ahhhh. That was nice and so true don't you think? :) We made friends with them and found out they also met on the internet and were married six years ago. And they live in WA. The dad was the most talkative of the group and they ended up being our neighbors for a day. Very nice people...and they are going to send us a group pic of the horseback riders at breakfast. Cool huh?

~ Cassidy and Lady ~

~ McKenna and Toad (hehehe...TOAD) ~

~ The corral which was actually just outside our cabin, but across the creek ~

~ The view from our cabin porch ~

~ The other direction, looking north ~

~ Almost done with the ride ~

~ Our cabin, Chuck, and our neighbor guy, Dave, who was a different guy than the afore mentioned rider guy. ~

(We kept running into Dave and his family inside Yellowstone.)

~ On the bench on our cabin's porch ~

~ Almost inside... ~

~ The road inside Yellowstone had tons of waterfalls on the sides ~

~ See snow? Make snowballs. ~

~ This was the first animal we saw and he was right on the side of the road...just walking along...almost close enough to touch. Well...if it weren't for those horns. ~

~ Easy, big guy (We could hear him breathe!) ~

~ Bison enjoying the meadow...one's rolling in the dirt ~

~ One has a bird on his back ~

There were bison everywhere. At one point traffic was backed up for an hour while a "herd" (don't know if that's what you call a group of bison) crossed the road. We couldn't see them from the van, but that's what oncoming drivers told us. As we slowly crept down the road, Chuck rode in the back (I was driving this time) and had the back sliding door open. Our view was white water creek the whole time. Perfect place for a traffic jam!

~ Us city-folk think these were female elk (There's a baby in there too) ~

~ Moose! ~

~ Big Horn things ~

"Wouldn't it be cool if we saw a bear?" Whoa...wait that's a bear! (We got tons of pics of this guy) And we stayed within the minimum range of 100 yards away. :) 

~ Old Faithful ~ 

133 feet in the air this time. (The max is about 160 feet - average is 130 to 150)

~ A long day of animal and geyser watching calls for ice cream ~

~ Bummer, we have to leave this beautiful place. ~

We had an incredible time there. The people were so friendly and the surroundings were just amazing. 

Today we drove through the Grand Tetons (expect more pics!) and are staying in Jackson Hole until Wednesday morning. More pics to come tomorrow!

Thanks for your comments! We have loved every bit of this trip so far but it's been hard to answer your questions as we go...so I wanted to answer some of them here...

• We bought Cassidy two more books... and she's finished both of them. So three altogether. McKenna's is a much bigger book 619 pages, and she finished it today. Cassidy and I walked down to a bookstore today and we bought three more. They have been reading almost the entire drive time, except to look outside to see a pretty view or a creature. :)

• The pace of the trip has been perfect. Just enough proportion between driving, activities, eating and relaxing. 

• My camera has been great! I can't believe how easy it is to take pictures. I've been switching back and forth between the two lenses to try to get closeups of critters/animals and the other one for huge landscapes. Still a ton to learn though.

• The van has worked out great for us. I'm really happy to be able to ride in it with my wonderful family! We popped the top part up and hung out in it by the creek for a while with all the windows open, listening to the water and the breeze.

• We've eaten a lot of Subway sandwiches! They (Subways) turn up nearly everywhere we go! Even more than McDonalds! And we've eaten a ton of junk food and fruit in the van.