NW Kid Chaser

                 My oldest son wrote a school essay about
                   our summer trip to Yellowstone.
                                Here's a glimpse:

"I sat in the car. Waiting. Waiting. Cars slashed by like lightning bolts. I kept asking myself, “When will we get there?” The question boomed in my mind. Suddenly, the car turned off the highway and onto a heavily used, but narrow, road. A toll booth was up ahead. I read the sign above the booth. The sign said, “Grand Teton National Park.”

We paid and entered the national park. As we rounded a bend, a herd of bison appeared in the meadow beside us. They grunted, coughed, and blurted out all kinds of bison noises. My heart jumped for joy at the sight. We drove on, and on, and on.

 After what seemed like an eternity, we reached our cabin. The cabin was really nice (except for the fact that there was no TV, no telephone and no WiFi). But, it didn’t matter. The bed was nice and cozy and bears couldn’t break through the door. We had pancakes and waffles every morning. For dinner, we had hotdogs.

We saw Old Faithful erupt. We saw it erupt two more times because we were nearby looking at all the other geysers and hot springs. While on our walk, we passed one of the definitely-not-erupting-geysers. The exact second we were past it, it started spurting water everywhere.

 On another day we traveled to Yellowstone Lake. We stopped at the boardwalk for the Mud Volcano. The Mud Volcano popped and bubbled. It is called the Mud Volcano because in 1870 it looked like a volcano, but then it blew its top. It smelled like sulfur and rotten eggs.

Nearby, we also saw Dragon’s Mouth Spring. The water swooshed in and out and it made a cool gurgling noise. The spring looked like a dragon’s mouth spurting steam. In the parking lot, an old storm drain became a mud pot with a few traffic cones around it to make sure no one fell in.

While in the park, my cousins and I built a fortress out of fallen timber. We created an awesome place to hang out. One night, the fort we were building was partly knocked down. We had no idea what happened. It could have been a moose, an elk, or a maybe even other kids. There were lots of uninhabited forts around, but ours looked the most like a log cabin. We made a roof with dead trees.

When leaving the park, we stopped at Norris Geyer Basin. We saw a small eruption of Steamboat Geyser. Walking back to our car, we saw a really big jackrabbit. That same day we also saw marmots at Sheepeater Cliff. Finally, we left the park. Starting the long car ride, I was anticipating the comforts of home. I decided that Yellowstone was a great place and I wanted to return next year.  I had enjoyed several days of adventure and had many great memories to tell."

       Many, many moons ago (when he was a bachelor) my husband lived in Spokane. Taking an alternate route home from Yellowstone, we stopped in Spokane to get a glimpse of his old stomping grounds.

    I’m not sure exactly what I expected to find in Spokane, but I (honestly) didn’t have particularly high hopes. We pulled into town with hotel reservations and a plan to leave early the next morning. Instead, we stayed past lunch and found a new favorite, downtown hotel and park.

Lodging: 
Usually when traveling, I look for a hotel with two things: a pool for the boys and a business center for me. After a long day’s drive – I can check my work email, while Dad and boys exhaust themselves in the pool. By 9pm, we’re all happy and tired.

However, when making arrangements in Spokane, our hotel choice was all about location, location, location. Well... location AND price. I wanted a hotel that would allow us to walk to Riverfront Park, but needed a room that would not break the bank.

I found Hotel Ruby through an internet search and decided that to take the risk, fully hoping that “boutique”, “recent remodel”, and “locally-owned” would add up to something interesting.

We weren’t disappointed.

Here are just a few snapshots of the trendy, hip hotel that served as our home away from home.

Riverfront Park:
 A fabulous public park is like a piece of art. A great park includes a mixture of colors and textures. It often tells a story sparked by a bit of inspiration. The designer must employ time and care in the details of the creation. What joy it was to find that Riverfront Park in downtown Spokane has all these things. Built for Expo ’74 of the World’s Fair, the park has things-to-see, things-to-do, beautiful strolling pathways, and treasures around every bend.

The public art in the park ranges from a gigantic red wagon (slide included), building blocks (see below), a trash eating goat-sculpture (sadly out of order on the day we visited), and a long line of iron men (and women) running in a race. While the playground in the park is very small, the carousel, gondola, suspension bridge, and splash fountain provide more than enough fun to fill the day.

     I couldn’t help but sing a few bars of the old Willy Nelson song each morning as we loaded into the car on our recent family vacation to Yellowstone National Park. My hubby and I are not “car people,” but we committed to this family road trip and so threw ourselves into the adventure. To pass time in the car as we traveled, my family listened to music, enjoyed audio books, and played games.

     The two most popular games while in the park were the “find-a-license-plate-from-every-state-in-the-county” game and the “list-all-the-animals-you-see-on-this-trip” game. Our backseat drivers were given a clipboard and put in charge of tracking our progress.

      Other games we tried as we traveled to and from home included Car Bingo (Thank you to Mom’s Mini Van for printable cards) and Slug Bug. We altered the original Slug Bug game and chose to keep a running tally rather than swapping punches. The family member who spied the most “bugs” didn’t have to help unpack the car upon return to our home in Oregon. Our oldest boy claimed the prize – and loved every minute of it.

    Also, a car must-have when traveling great distances: audio books. We checked-out a few on CD from our library (Check-out this post about our favorite audio book title on this trip), but we also stocked our mp3 player. One boy could listen on headphones; one could nap; parents could talk. Thank you to Library2Go for the free downloads of children’s books.

One brief stop during our road trip to Yellowstone National Park was Jackson, Wyoming. Jackson was a great place to stock-up on groceries and gas before entering Yellowstone (through the South Entrance). Jackson also has a touristy charm, as well as a wealth of outdoor “doing” opportunities.

     
        The bulk of our time in Jackson Hole was spent on the Snake River. We participated in a Scenic Float Trip through Mad River Boat Trips: Three hours on the water, packed lunches, 6 bald eagle sightings, and two happy boys. The ride was smooth through the wonderfully beautiful and wild land. It rained on us during the last part of our boat trip. Hard, driving rain chilled us all, but the weather gear provided by Mad River made the storm bearable (and perhaps even a bit memorable). In just a few more years, we’ll be interested in their white water trips too!

“pool” formed by the two rivers and found a spot along the stretch of the river that is protected by a small ledge of carefully arranged rocks. Because the mixture of water and small children typically puts this Mommy on high alert, I left my camera locked in the car so that I could focus solely on survival of my offspring. Of course, where the water of the two rivers mix wasn’t more than two to three feet deep in July AND we quickly set up a barrier of Moms and Dads downstream who could “catch” any kiddo that made us nervous. Thus, I found myself able to enjoy every wet moment of this outing. Thank you to my cousin who passed along these great pics (and reminds me to worry less – live more).

America. Our family spent a part of one day at the water’s edge just behind the Visitor’s Center near Fishing Bridge. Children are eligible for a free fishing license and although my boys (sons and cousins included) didn’t try fly-fishing, I was happy to see them perfect their long, arched casts. I recommend bringing your own supplies (barbless hooks and artificial lures) and come to the lake early (before the afternoon winds begin to blow). 

Live what you love: National Park Rangers

We attended one “Ranger Talk” at Old Faithful and participated in a “Ranger Led Hike” near Canyon. Such Ranger Programs are free of charge and offered at a number of park sites;

Also during our four day visit, both of boys completed the Jr. Ranger program. Free for children age 5-12, I downloaded the workbook before leaving home. The boys read through the directions on the way to the park and began filling in the

    I was determined to make our Yellowstone National Park memorable and so researched and planned our time in the park carefully.  At the half-way mark of our visit, I asked my oldest son how he liked our vacation so far. He told me, “I like the doing-things more than the looking-things.”

    This completely made sense to me. Yellowstone is a HUGE park with so many “sights” (and “sites”) to see, but little boys are little boys (and need to move, touch, and actively engage with their world). Here are the highlights of our “seeing things” time in the park.  I’ll cover the “doing things” in another post.

Different sections of the park offer different landscapes. The NE corner is high mountains and low valleys, the NW corner is dramatic rock fields, canyons, and cliffs; the Canyon Area reminds me of Oregon, and the Hayden Valley offers the large grassland/meadows where bison herds often roam. We drove the full figure-eight and I enjoyed the change of scenery.

Our other sightseeing stops around the park included the Mammoth Hot Springs (which vary widely based on season – ask others if the hike up the stairs is worth it before you take little-ones); the Fountain Paint Pots (a short, easy walk that offers visitors the chance to see all four geo-thermal features active in Yellowstone Park), the Norris Geyser Basin (with its magnificent view of a geyser/hot spring field); the West Thumb Geyser Basin (a very short boardwalk with a great view of Yellowstone Lake); and the Sheepeater Cliffs (visible from the parking lot and a great spot to see marmots).

With something interesting to see at every turn, I chose just two locations a day as “must see.” This allowed us to stop and discover unknown treasures – some which we preferred to the big-name sites – along the way. By the end of the trip, each family member had a geothermal favorite.

Here’s the final tally:

“Less stuff, more life!” is a mantra my husband and I have recently acquired. To that purpose, we gave our boys a summer road trip to Yellowstone National Park this past Christmas.
The boys unwrapped a variety of boxes (inside of
more boxes) to get to this certificate:

       Seven months later, we packed the car to the brim and headed out across Oregon and Idaho to reach the world’s first national park. My sons describe the trip as fun, long, hot, exciting, funny, cool, and all around awesome.  This will be just one of many posts that tell of our adventures....

Additional posts can be found here, here and here.

Then: Thousand Springs State Park at Hagerman, ID

You can see Malad Gorge from your car as you fly by on Highway 84, but taking Exit 147 for the five minute drive to its edge is completely worth the effort. My oldest son was a bit nervous

 

      Over Spring Break this year, we traveled to Colorado to see family.  Our air carrier of choice for the trip was Frontier Airlines. Half way through the outbound flight (just when the toys and books brought to distract the boys began to lose their luster), we were served warm cookies. It was delightful.

      Heading back to Oregon on the return trip – we heard the rumor that Frontier Airlines had decided to stop serving cookies on its flights. My youngest son took this news very seriously. Upon take-off he asked for pen and paper and penned a quick note to the cabin crew. He held tight to the note throughout the flight and was visibly relieved when the cookies were finally served.