Foto Story Friday #113--- Family Gathering/Trip to Yellowstone, day 1

We had a family gathering this week near Yellowstone National Park. Unfortunately, not all the family could make it.  None of my 4 brothers and families nor my youngest sister and her family were able to attend.  In addition to all of them, we also had to leave behind our oldest, Cody.  He had to attend a defensive driving course as a result of his hitting a parked car and failing to report the accident by quickest means...... as in he pretended it didn't happen until the damage to his car was seen by Grandpa!  Hopefully lesson learned and we won't have to repeat this!

Here he is in all his 6ft1in glory, ready to head to work as we head to the family gathering.

Of course with kids you have to stop often for potty breaks.  While everyone was taking their break, I was taking photos.  This one is looking west, the direction we were headed...... looks like rain,

Looking east we see the sky looks less threatening.  The views of the Yellowstone river are often breath taking and I found this view rather pleasing to the eye.  I was trying to get the sun rays, they are faint, but there.

We saw some very cool cloud formations.

As you may know, I like to snap pictures out the window as we travel .  These billowing clouds over the hills screamed out to be photographed.

We passed many the rafting party on our way to Yellowstone.

We also saw some kids cooling off in a daring manner.  Right after I snapped this one as we passed, he jumped into the Gallatin River, not something I'm brave enough.... or is it stupid... to try.

The much awaited Park.

and this is what happened, Em fell asleep!  She spent the whole time asking: 'are we at Yellowstone yet?'

Her partner in crime and fun also fell asleep.

Then we weren't quite sure which way it was to the campground and finally decided to head towards the national forest service visitors center and hoped we would run into a sign pointing us in the right direction.  My mom called to see where we were and then lost service so we headed into this storm and found a campground to ask for directions and turns out we were close.  We continued on and found the campground, but my parents were not there yet.  We set up camp and eventually we see my parents RV pull up without the vehicle they were towing.  My mom was worried about us and they decided to go looking for us.  She called Troy's parents and they got worried about us and put the highway patrol on the lookout for us!  The cell service is spotty at best in that area.  Next morning when we had service again we both had many messages from them and Troy's co-workers worried about us!  :)  we got a good laugh about it! :D

After the tents were set up and Dad got the RV leveled out some of us went for a walk and found huckleberries!

The last to arrive also had an adventure.  They were not quite sure of the location either, we were all thinking it was closer to the park.  The campground was nice and it was very pretty there, but it did happen to be about 1/2 hour from Yellowstone.  Anyway they drove all the way to West Yellowstone and then came back.   We had a nice dinner of hot dogs and sausages with Bushes grillin' beans, then topped it off with S'mores.

Indian Paintbrush is in abundance and very pretty.

don't eat the red ones!  I don't know what these berries are but they are photogenic.

Lots of pine trees that also asked to be captured.

pretty purple flowers too.
Stay tuned for day 2 next week when we actually go into the park for sight seeing! :)





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