Yellowstone

Yellowstone has been on our list for a few years now.  We finally took the days off work and it was TOTALLY worth it!

Prepare for lots of pictures...

We got to Jackson Hole at dusk and decided to stay there and drive into Yellowstone the next day. I love that you can see the Tetons in the background. 

We started out with this little cute waterfall just off the road. 

Of course the waterfalls got a little bit bigger.

 The van is great for taking our bikes with us so we took a short 2 mile "trail" - it was paved - to a geyser named Lonestar. 

It only goes off every 3 hours so we spent a lot of time waiting.

Finally it went off - it was totally worth the wait.

Next was the hot pools.

It was pretty hot while we were there so we took a swim in the Firehole river. After which we cooked dinner. 

It went from hot to cold and rainy pretty quick.  Forgive the next pictures, we're in rain jackets.

We went up to Mammoth Hot Springs at the very top of Yellowstone.  It was pretty cool but kind of far away from the rest of the attractions.
 

This is where we camped.  The park campgrounds were full so we had to drive out of the park to sleep.  I kind of liked it this way because we were relatively isolated.

Yellowstone north entrance.

I don't want to talk about how early we got up...

Aaron was a little more chipper...

Oh there, I must have had breakfast by this point...

We really wanted to see a bear - I even made Aaron buy some bear spray before we left.  But what we lacked in bear luck we made up for in bison luck.  They were so close to the car!

The upper and lower falls were amazing!

The hike, however, was pretty steep.

I loved this trip.  The van worked great, I slept fabulously, and the weather was rainy - yes for a bit - but it cooled off considerably after the rain stopped which made for some great hikes. We will definitely be going back.

City of Rocks

City of Rocks National Reserve in Idaho is another great place to climb.  We recently went and here are some of the highlights.

Singing to Van Halen...

Beautiful clouds...

Our first shot at cooking on our little propane stove.  This was actually super successful and we are hoping to save of our precious travel money by cooking all of our own meals.

And lots of climbing (note the dirty climbing hands).  We didn't get any pictures of the beautiful scenery (oops) but hopefully you can go and see it for yourself.
 

Hill Airforce Base

So Aaron gets a little giddy about airplanes.  We decided to pull off one day at Hill Airforce Base and he told me little tid bits about each type of plane.

I would love for Aaron's dad to come with us to Hill Airforce Base someday.  He's been in the military for so long, I bet he'll have some great stories too.

Maple Canyon

Aaron has been rock climbing for years and so I approached the sport as a way to spend time together but now I love it.  We are lucky enough to live in a state where you can climb on so many different kinds of rocks.  When we went to Maple Canyon Aaron had a hard time describing it to me and, once I saw it, I understood why.  The type of rock is called "cobble stone" and is very much true to it's name.  Think of taking a bunch of smooth rock stuck in cement and that's what you are climbing.

It feels similar to gym climbing other than the rocks are super smooth and round.

The van worked great.

Of course we couldn't pass up some biking in Fremont Indian State Park - beautiful!

Dragon Duathalon

Aaron has been trying to convince me that I should like running.  No matter how hard I try I really hate it but I do LOVE road biking.  So we decided to try a super short biathlon with the hopes of finding some common ground.  We drove to Malad Idaho and participated in their Dragon Duathalon.  It consisted of a 1.5 mile run and 7 mile bike.  I actually had a great time.

We camped in town by the park where the race was starting the next morning.  It was the first time that we had slept inside city limits.  We had made curtains to cover the back and side door windows but nothing to cover the front.  It was the WORST nights sleep I've had in the van to date.  The street lights were so bright! It was a good experience.  Now we know we either need a front curtain or that we can't sleep within city limits (or at least where there are street lights).

Castleton Re-do

In the last Moab post we tried to climb Castleton ...... and had to come back down.  I'm not a super strong climber so when Aaron's brother wanted to give it another try, I was conveniently working.

This is the brave duo...

This is the challenge...

 
And this is the incredible view...

Ps - I love when Josh comes to visit. Who wouldn't love hanging out with this guy? It's always an adventure.

Drive-in Movie

Come to find out, the van is great for drive-in movies.