The Last Leg of our Trip: Island Park part II

We headed back to Island Park after our visit in Montana. Big D has a family reunion there so we had to make an appearance. I think it really helped having a nice break in the middle of our camping trip, but I have to admit it was hard to go from no civilization to civilization back to no civilization again. We all survived and are in one piece, barely. I think you know when you've had a good vacation: when you are super excited to go home.



We went rafting down the Henry's Fork. I think Bear got a little bored. He perked up a bit when we saw two Moose. This was Bear's first year taking the trip with us and I think we should have waited one more year. Of course it didn't help that the boat that had all our food and drinks took off and didn't wait up, thanks Grandma. We survived on one water bottle between four of us and a small handful of chips, thanks Aunt Kathy.




Big D and Grandpa took all four kids on the big four wheeler ride into West Yellowstone. It's about a two hour ride in and two hours back. I think there ended up being 17 people on 8 machines.

My Mother-in-law and I drove my car and met everyone in West. We had lunch at the best little pizzeria in town, The Hot Box. They have a pizza there called the Calamity Jane with artichoke hearts on it that is to die for. I can't wait to go back and get another pizza.



After lunch my Mother-in-law and I grabbed the kids and went into the park leaving Grandpa and Big D to finish the four wheeler ride back to camp all by themselves.

We stopped at the mud pots and half way around the boardwalk Bear decided he needed to use the restroom. I picked him up and tried to find a restroom as quickly as I could but in my frantic state I couldn't find one. I saw a nice family exiting their RV and rushed over to ask if we could please use their restroom. They started speaking a different language so I was scared they didn't understand me. finally one of them spoke English and took us into their RV. Come to find out they were from Norway on vacation for the first time in the US. Of course now they probably think Americans are daft since as soon as I stepped out of the RV I saw the restrooms maybe fifty feet from where I parked my car.

We enjoyed pointing out the local wildlife, and topped off our trip with the grand finale, Old Faithful. It was funny because we all got wet with stinky water as the geyser shot up 100 feet in the air, we happened to be standing down wind.

Grandma spoiled the kids and let them each pick something out of the gift shop and then bought us all an ice cream. We all had a great time, Thanks Grandma!