Call of the Wild

I'm wrapping up my second to last day in Colorado, a vacation in which I spent most of my time not even at my Aunt's house. Here's a little anecdote summing up our adventures elsewhere...

Camping is one of the best ways to find out how adaptive you are to not sleeping in your own bed, along with living without certain amenities that most of us take for granted.

Road-tripping is another way to challenge how flexible you are with the company around you while in enclosed spaces from one destination to another. 

So, after having not visited my Aunt Sonny, Uncle Troy, and cousins Quinn and Syri for four years, we figured: why not combine the two?

Troy teaches at CSU, and had the opportunity to go to Yellowstone to start on a project of reintroducing wolves to the park. My Aunt, cousins, and I drove up to join him, stopping in many places along the way.

This was our first campsite.

The first site was pretty nice, a little south of Jackson Hole, WY. This was my first time camping in years, and we were now in bear country. 

This was a bit scary for all of us, because we had to be a lot more careful about how we stored food, bringing bear spray with us if we had to go somewhere, especially at night. To top it off, all three of us girls got food poisoning in the middle of the night. Yay!

First campsite, still: Granite Hot Springs

It wasn't that bad overall, really. And our next night of camping continued the adventure.




Yellowstone's busiest month is July, therefore, you have to show up to campsites SUPER EARLY to claim them, which isn't very easy when traveling with 8 and 11-year-olds who aren't morning people. Heck, I wasn't much of a morning person on this trip, either.

Old faithful! It was phenomenal.

To say the least, we weren't able to get a campsite where we had planned for night two. But instead we ended up in a little town of Gardiner, Montana. Three states-- yeah!

Sunset over our campsite in Gardiner, MT.

Camping the second night, we had more of a routine, with Troy with us, also. So we split up into two tents. 

However, I was a lot more freaked out that night because there was something outside of our tent mere minutes after we retreated for the night.

We want to believe it was elk... So I'm sticking with that :)

One of our last days in Yellowstone involved camping at a site called Indian Creek, which is perched next to Obsidian Creek.

This is where I found what we believe to be an arrowhead! 

(Sorry, I'm too lazy to take a picture right now, but it's suuuuper old and awesome and I'm really excited about it because it was definitely one of those 'unwritten' things on my bucket list.)

Between Gardiner and this site lay a small 'town' called Mammoth. Here is where we discovered the Boiling River, which is a hot spring that flows into the Gardner river.

Gross camping Morgan next to the hot spring!

Hot springs are quite common in northern Yellowstone. I'm not sure how or why there is such bountiful geothermal activity in this region, but it is out of this world.

One of the many hot springs atop Mammoth's ridge.

Our last night on the trek back, we encountered more wildlife than ever, including following bison down the street, many elk, and even a moose!

Jumping bison!

We stayed a night in Jackson Hole, WY. A town that reminds me a lot of places I've visited in Montana. 

Our final morning involved some bouldering at a newly discovered park!

Tomorrow is my last day with my Aunt and her family. So we're going to explore Fort Collins and old town. I'm really grateful to know people all around the country who are willing to host me graciously, family or not.

I'm not sure how much I am looking forward to getting back to Seattle. 

But I think that with this adventure, I know a bit more about myself.