Day 4 on the Yellowstone Trip

On Thursday of our Yellowstone trip, we packed up all our stuff and checked out of the condo. It's always a little crazy trying to get everything gathered up while keeping the kids happy at the same time. They fell by the wayside, I suppose, and decided to fight about lots of little things. I got tired of it and finally put them all in a time out until the van was packed and ready to go.
We actually came to Yellowstone for Jeremy's family reunion this year. On Thursday is when everyone was meeting up together. After checking out, we met up with Jenny & Bryan, Katie & Nick, and Jeremy's parents. We all went back to the Wolf & Grizzly park - it being our 2nd time. This time the wolves were all just laying around enjoying the sun, but the bears were more fun to watch! This one is scratching it's back on the tree.

This one was also trying to scratch a hard-to-reach spot using a tree.
When we were done looking at the bears, we stopped at the big teddy bear couch for some pictures. This is my little family. :)

Just Jeremy and I.

Most of the cousins! We were missing 4.

Finally it was time to head into Yellowstone park again! Jeremy had his window down and Alexandra looked like she was just flyin' in the breeze. I finally made him put it up, the poor little girl!

There is a bald eagle that lives in this nest right off the side of the road. I didn't get a picture of the bird today, but here is the nest. We actually saw quite a few of these nests all throughout the park.

We saw our 2nd coyote of the trip, but this one was close up! We watched it pounce on a mouse or something that was in all that dead grass.

Then it crossed the road right in front of us.

Thursday started out to be a decent day with nice weather, but it wasn't long before the storm clouds came rolling in and we got caught in a downpour with lots of rain, hail, and tons of thunder! That was it. Our whole caravan decided to turn around and go home to our cabin. We stopped for a potty break while the storm was right above us and Samantha and I went in to use the pit toilet. Wow! The sound of the thunder in there was awesome! If it weren't for the smell, we might have stayed a little longer. :)

Even though it was raining, we did stop to watch this group of elk on the other side of the river. The group on the shore wouldn't allow the one in the water to climb the banks. Every time it would try, they would go and back it into the water again. Poor thing! Nature is so interesting to watch.

For Jeremy's family reunion, we all pitched in and rented a cabin together in Island Park that was big enough to sleep everyone. We checked into the cabin in the afternoon. Here are just a couple of pictures. This is the fireplace in the front room.

This is from the front room looking up into the loft. The cabin was pretty big and it had enough beds for everyone - thank goodness.

After eating lunch at the cabin, we all left to visit Johnny Sack's Cabin. Unfortunately we couldn't go inside because it was closed, but the springs there are amazing! It is a natural spring that starts the whole river. You can go to the top of it and see the water just bubbling out of the ground. In the river and right under the bridge are tons of really big fish. We brought bread to feed the fish and the kids had a ball watching the fish swarm to get the bread. The water is so clear you can see everything.

Athena, Nathan, and I are still watching the fish after everyone else went away.

While we were there, Connor - Katie's little boy who is 2 - refused to keep his shoes on. He kept taking them off and trying to walk without them. It was really starting to annoy Katie. Finally, Connor decided he had had enough of those darn shoes. He went and threw them over the bridge. We all watched as the shoes floated under the bridge, out the other side, and down the river. Nick went running down the bank of the river to see if they would come close enough to pull out. Then before we knew it, there went Nick! He was running right out into the middle of the river to retrieve those shoes! Good job Nick!

Later he told us that he ran out there because he just decided to, and that he didn't really think the water looked that deep until he got out there. LOL!

We stayed awhile longer and let the kids enjoy looking into the water. They were watching fish and snails from this dock.

Here we are with the Johnny Sack cabin in the background. It was windy, hence the really stupid hairdo I'm sporting. Ha ha, notice no one else's hair is "blowing in the wind"? Whatever!

This is a better view of the cabin. I wish we could have gone inside.

The springs start here, right behind where I'm standing.

Ditto, but where Jeremy is standing.
You can see a few ripples on the water where it's coming up from the ground.

For the rest of the day we went back to the cabin, ate dinner, and just hung out.