Yellowstone Vacation 2010

We went to Yellowstone last week for the Anderson family's "last hurrah" of the summer. We left no stone unturned, driving nearly every square inch of road in the park—all the while hoping to catch a glimpse of a bear. Our efforts paid off near the end of our trip when we encountered a grizzly and three black bears in the northeast corner of the park—more about that later.

Most of our kids have never experienced the wonders that Yellowstone has to offer—geysers, wildlife, natural beauty—so it was a lot of fun taking them on their introductory tour. If you'd like to experience the tour, as well, start scrolling.
On the way to Yellowstone, we stopped at an unbelievable place called "Bear World," just south of Rexburg, Idaho. For those who've never experienced Bear World, imagine if you will, driving your car into the midst of dozens of viciously hungry bears (primed to rip you limb-from-limb) with just a windshield and sheet metal separating you from absolute and certain obliteration! Am I exaggerating? Well...slightly. They were actually pretty docile. But driving a car within a few feet of a bear offers a certain "rush" to be sure. The kids had a lot of fun. The price of entry also came with admittance to a small amusement park and petting zoo, too.
Bear World boasts one of the few "leucistic" elk in the world.
Look at this bloodthirsty beast—poised and ready to issue his barbaric crusade against vehicle dwellers large and small.
Here we have a full-on mob combining forces to "take-down" our Honda, Pilot and make a sandwich out of us.

Our cubs.

Amusement park rides at Bear World.

And here's the Bear World petting zoo. A bit misleading. No, you don't get to pet bears.

That night we stayed in West Yellowstone, Montana. Our hotel had this great 100 ft. water slide that was a big hit with the kids.

Bright and early the next morning we found our way into the Park.

We had a discussion with the kids about staying on the boardwalks at all the hydro-thermal sites. Yellowstone has many CAUTION signs at the trail-head of several sites with this crude rendering of an unfortunate youth who unwisely strayed from the safety of the boardwalk. As you can see, someone scribbled the name "Josh" above the rule breaker. I'm sure it was a sibling who thought it would be a funny joke on their brother. Regardless of the back-story, for the rest of our trip, every time Christian saw another one of these signs, he pointed and said, "look, it's Josh!"

Here we are waiting for "Old Faithful" to erupt. And yes, she's as faithful as ever.

Thar she blows!

This Bison decided the best place to mosey was right in the middle of the road, creating a traffic jam behind him. Fortunately for us, we were going in the opposite direction.

We hiked to see several waterfalls. This one is "Lower Falls."

Here we are on a really cool trail leading down to the canyon bottom to see the waterfall from below. The trail was a lot of fun but we learned a valuable lesson. We found that 500 stairs going DOWN seems like about 500 stairs. But those same stairs going UP seems more in the range of, oh...about 500,000 stairs.

This waterfall is called "Tower Falls."

We saw a lot of Yellowstone's residents.

And here we have the pinnacle of the vacation. After searching throughout the park for a bear, we were rewarded with the spotting of this grizzly bear. As you can see, we kept our distance—possibly 100 yards—much farther away than we were at Bear World. This one is a "mommy bear." She had two cubs with her. The kids were very excited to have seen a bear in its natural environment.

But we weren't through with the bear sightings for the day. A few miles down the road we spotted this black bear across the river.

But he didn't stay on the other side of the river very long. He decided to cross the river to our side. It didn't take him very long to get across the river either. It also didn't take US very long to get back into our car. Soon afterward, we spotted two more bears emerging from the woods to the clearing on the other side of the river.

We couldn't believe our luck—four Yellowstone bear sightings on our way out of the park.

We drove home through the Grand Teton National Park and took in its spectacular mountain range.

Obligatory family photo in front of cool mountains.

I love Yellowstone. It's a truly amazing place. And it was a lot of fun showing the kids why it was the nation's first national park. It was a great vacation. And we fit it in just under the wire, too. We wrapped-up our vacation one day before the start of the new school year. A great way to end the summer.