Go West...

Happy Summer!

The Self family started Summer out with a bang! As soon as Sarah Grace finished her last day of school we hit the road (or air)! Our first stop was Jackson Hole, Wyoming for our Self family vacation. We flew to Salt Lake City and met up with Adam's family and all flew together to Wyoming. We spent a week in Grand Teton National Park in a beautiful cabin and left from there to go to Yellowstone NP for two days. It was beautiful! It was the perfect time of year to go. All of the animals had new babies and it was still cool enough that they hadn't all moved up into the high country and we were able to see tons! We saw moose, elk, bison, bear, fox, coyote, and bald eagles (& lots of horses and cows). Some time we saw herds of 150-200 bison at a time! They'd stop traffic to cross the road wandering from one place to another.

Jackson is a true "old west" town in the foothills of the Teton Mtns. There were lots of fun shops and restaurants and we went into town several days. We stayed about 45 minutes from town near a christian dude ranch (that let us ride for FREE!). It was THE BEST ride we've ever done. It was the week before they officially opened for their Summer season and the horses were fresh and ready to ride. We took a 2 hour ride up into the mountains, across some little streams, and even saw a moose and her calf and some deer while we were riding. We also saw grizzly tracks and saw where one had recently dug up a buried horse and been eating on it! It sounds gross but it was pretty cool. We had been warned all week by people at the ranch that they had spotted a grizzly with 2 cubs on the property several times in the week before we were there.

In the middle of the week we left our cabin and drove to Yellowstone (about an hour and half away). When we got into the park there was actually snow on the ground, over a foot deep in some places. So we stopped and let SG play in it for a while. She had never done that before and thought it was great. After the first stop she wanted to pull over every time we saw a patch. We stopped for lunch at the Old Faithful Inn for lunch and while we were there it started snowing!! SG and I ran outside and played for a second. It was coming down pretty hard but didn't stick. It snowed a couple more times during the day and the next day it was 70 degrees and sunny...go figure. Sarah Grace was not a fan of the geysers in the park because she didn't like the "eggy" smell (sulfur). She did enjoy watching Old Faithful "eRUMPting". She also thought all the different waterfalls were neat.

We saw tons of animals in YNP. The most exciting were the bears! We saw 4 black bears, 2 together and 2 others individually. It's pretty rare to see any much less 4 in one day and within about an hour! We also saw 2 bald eagles! They were so pretty. The bison were everywhere and after a while, we didn't even stop to look anymore because they were as common as cows, but wild. There seemed to be one baby for every adult! So sweet.

All in all, it was great trip and Sarah Grace had a ball (Charlotte stayed behind at home).