Meet the Griswalds. Part Two: going the way of the buffalo

We made it to the park in record time once the family truckster was put in a short term rehabilitation facility – the airport long term parking lot. From there, we flew to West Yellowstone and bedded down for the night in our hotel. Lucky for us, Dagmar, the German, was working the front desk and she was not only waiting for us, but she saved our rooms. We were a little nervous that our late arrival would have led to hotel cancellations, but…it didn’t.

The morning started off with a tasty breakfast served to us by a boy from Slovakia at the Running Bear Pancake house. The old ladies working at the place were in love with Elliott and came over to talk to him several times and ask us if he 1) needed a kids menu and 2) if he could have some markers to draw with while we ate. Um, no. He’s 7 months old. We know that he’s a giant, but he doesn’t need any markers.

We had a great day in Jellystone park. It was in the mid 80’s and a little warmer than we anticipated, but overall we had a really good day. The north-west area of the park is where we seemed to spend most of our time, and we did a lot of driving throughout the day. The temperatures in the park seemed to deter animals from coming out to visit or even moving when they were visible, but we still saw a lot of sleeping buffalo, sleeping elk, and sleepy water.

Elliott and I hung out and played in the dirt while everyone went down the Jacob’s ladder hike to see the Yellowstone falls close up. I was happy to have my sweet baby as an excuse not to climb down 320 steps that jut out of the rock. The two of us had a grand time staring at all of the strangely attired people who only braved the lookout over the water falls,like us.

After the hike we discovered our only tragedy of the day. James’ memory card bit the dust and it was full of the pictures he’d been taking all morning long. I hate it when that happens! I may times have had film destroyed and had a similar digital incident so I could feel his pain. I think he compensated for it throughout the rest of the day.

As we were leaving the Norris Geysers heading towards Old Faithful, we had our second casualty of the day. The monkey baby, who had been so good he could have won a Guinness world record for “goodness” as a 7 month old in the car for an extended period of time, started to melt down, poltergeist style. He started screaming, and was on the verge of spinning his head all the way around and vomiting green goo on us so our little family, in the rental truckster, headed back to the hotel while everyone else went to see Old Faithful.

At the hotel, Elliott wore us out trying to entertain him. When the fam got back from Old Faithful, who isn’t nearly as faithful as he used to be, we headed to Pete’s for, yup, you guessed it, Pizza. I opted for pasta, and the tired baby, who’d been screaming at me and Ross just minutes earlier was in baby heaven with lots to look at in the very noisy and crowded pizzeria. He was in baby heaven. Walking back to the hotel from dinner, which was just across the street, he fell asleep in Haley’s arms.

We had a good day in the Park. Traveling with a monkey is hard. But, he is cute and everyone who took the time to notice, told us so.