Rob and Kate

Jason and I spent our 4th of July with his brother Rob and Rob's girlfriend, Kate. They met us in Yellowstone at the Madison campground for a night's stay and some hiking. We had a great time - they're both so fun to be with - and it was refreshing to be with family. :)

However.... I had the worst night's sleep I've had in a long, looooong time.

Back in March, when we packed up our house, our camping equipment went into storage for the simple reason that there was no room in the car. So, faced with a night of camping, we borrowed Kate's parent's tent and brought an air mattress from the ranch.

The tent was really small. The air mattress turned out to be a twin. The twin air mattress didn't fit in the tent. We had to lift the tent to the car, put the deflated air mattress in it, and then inflate while plugged into the car. Then we carried the tent and mattress back to the site and staked it in.

We have no sleeping bags with us in Wyoming, either. So we brought sheets and a blanket. I tried to talk Jason into bringing the comforter from our bed, too (knowing from experience how cold it gets in Yellowstone at night), but Jason had checked the weather and declared it would only get into the 50s and we didn't need the comforter.

I packed sweats, a heavy sweatshirt and really thick socks to sleep in anyway. My mama didn't raise no fool. (I have camped at least two weeks every summer throughout my entire life!) Jason slept on the ground with the sheets. I slept on the air mattress.

By one a.m. the mattress had deflated so much that my ass was on the ground and I was torqued with my feet and head still up in the air. Super uncomfortable. We pulled the plug on the mattress.

By three a.m., the temperature had dropped to 31 degrees and Jason was freezing. So freezing that he went to get the dog blanket from the car.

We tossed and turned on the cold, hard ground for a few more hours.

I think I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. Jason got a little more.

We were both walking funny in the morning - like we'd aged 40 years overnight. And you know? We both found our situation hilarious. You have two choices in that situation - laugh or bitch. We chose to laugh.

What's that saying? Poor preparation leads to piss-poor performance? Something like that? That was totally us. We should have bought a tent at Wal-Mart and brought the comforter. Hindsight is always 20-20.

By 8:30 a.m. we were having breakfast in West Yellowstone and I was on my third cup of coffee. The day looked bright. So off we went for a 4th of July hike to Fairy Falls in Yellowstone. Beautiful. And we had a GREAT time!

Thanks, Rob and Kate, for driving to meet us, for loaning us the tent, and for lots of laughter!

Jellystone and its Buffalo

Sunday, we finally made it into Yellowstone and stayed in the park for 12 hours. I'd never been in the park during the Spring before, and have to say that it is AWESOME when there aren't a gazillion people around or in your way. Unfortunately, several roads in the park and all of the hiking trails have not yet opened due to snow. So, we'll get to do some hiking eventually.

If you want to see some gorgeous photos of the Park, you should go to Jason's Blog and see what he shot. It was exciting to see him so inspired - inspiration doesn't always come when you want it and other times it comes in a tidal wave. This was a tidal wave day.

He was so excited and inspired that he leapt out of the car and asked me to take a picture of him with the Yellowstone sign. If you know Jason, you know it's like pulling teeth to get him on the other side of the camera. But on Sunday, he actually volunteered. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge and you'll be able to see how happy he is. :)

Did I mention that they've had more snow in Yellowstone this year than they've had in the last fifteen years? Here's the Sylvan Pass from the East Entrance into the park.

In this video clip, Jason tries to get on top of the snow to shoot the trees on the other side. Pretty funny - third time's always the charm. :)



We saw tons of Buffalo, like this guy...



and these guys butting heads in Mammoth Springs while we were having lunch...

In fact, there were so many Buffalo that they had to give us this card when we entered the park:

But then we saw this little guy and his mom:

He couldn't have been more than a couple of days old. And it made me think again - Happy Mother's Day to all you mom's out there. Thanks for putting up with behavior like this:

Other than that? It was a super enjoyable Sunday with my husband in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Did I mention it was cold?

Here's another comment that Blogger decided to delete when it went down for the day:

From Jess:
You guys are so cute! I can't wait to see more photos from Yellowstone as Spring and Summer progress. And the baby buffalo is so sweet!