Robin and I took 5 kids with us to Yellowstone. Not the longest drive, but not the shortest drive with 5 kids in the car, either. We had a good time and saw LOTs of wildlife. Elk (some very close), Eagles, Buffalo, a wolf, pelicans, and geese. We didn’t see any bears, but while camping we heard something grunting around the camp, and heard wolves howling.

The kids would tell you that they were “charged” by buffalo, but that wasn’t really the case. If you look at the pictures you may see one with the kids standing in front of a buffalo. The story is–we were in a parking lot, and along come two buffalo. After seeing so many and so close up, we weren’t all that impressed or suprised (one was 15 feet from us in our camp!) , but asked the kids to just stand there and we’d take a picture when the buffalo walked by behind them. Well, the two buffalo decided right then to change directions, and to pick up the pace, so they were trotting right toward the kids! They scampered out of the way and there was no real danger, but it gave us all a scare.

We saw all the great sites, had fun camping, and the second night we enjoyed our hotel in Idaho Falls with a Pool. By the time we got home on Sunday we were all a bit sick of being in the car, and not a little bit tired of each other.

Ryan was a real saint and he watched not only Jenna and John, but also Amy’s kids for half of the day on Friday. He was supposed to be working from home that day, but I don’t think he got much work done.

It was a fun trip, and I’d love to take the other kids someday when they were older. There was a noticable lack of children John’s age. It’s just too hard to keep them from danger when they are too big for a backpack but too little for following important directions (like don’t get too close to that scalding water, or don’t go and touch that big thing that looks like a “doggie” but is really called a buffalo). So, I’m glad we didn’t have John or Jenna along on this trip. Traveling with kids 6 and up is much easier!