Last Summer Vacation

The cabin was great! We got in late on Thursday night and stayed until Tuesday afternoon. We relaxed, fished, explored and watched the Olympics. The weather was fantastic. It reached the 80's during the day and dropped down into the 50's at night. a few rain storms hit, but that's part of the fun up there, I think.

Here is a short recount of some of our activities, as well as some pictures.

We went down to the Henry's Fork river a few times and let the girls swim. They both wore life jackets and would walk up the river a ways and then float down. The water was freezing cold at first, but with it being so hot outside, they quickly got use to it and were happily floating around. I think the deepest the water got was to Gretchen's waist, but I still felt more comfortable with them in life jackets.

We discovered that the dog really likes the water. Something that Aaron was a little nervous about. She was timid at first, but eventually started jumping in and catching the sticks we'd throw in the water. She also enjoyed ducking her head in the water to try and grab rocks off the bottom. It was quick funny to watch. She made some friends with a few other dogs that were playing by the river.

One of the days we took a drive into Yellowstone and drove over to the NorthEast entrance, which I think leads to Cooke City, WY. Over in that part of the park, most of the buffalo spend their summers because it's a little cooler than the rest of the park. We saw 3 coyotes on the way and tons of elk. No bears this time. bummer! There are a few rivers in that part of the park that Aaron enjoys fishing. The Soda Butte is the river we usually fish. Well, Aaron fishes and the girls and I look for cool rocks, bugs, animal tracks and sometimes even find animal parts. (one year Shelby found a bison hoof - Yuck!)

We also spent some time exploring a new part of the park. You can't get there through any of the normal entrances. You have to do down through Ashton, ID and drive up into Wyoming from there. It is only about 45 min outside Ashton, so the drive was pretty short. anyway, it takes you into Yellowstone to a place called Cave Falls. It is about 1 mile into the park and that's all you can drive to from that entrance. If you want to do some hiking, you can walk trails back to several other waterfalls, but this was our destination for this trip. The falls were really pretty. They are about 35 feet tall and they do have a cave off to one side that we hiked into and took pictures. We didn't know until after that we weren't suppose to take our dog on the trail. Oops! Anyway, here are some photos.

On the way back from Cave Falls, we went through the Mesa Scenic Highway and stopped off to see Mesa Falls. It's been a few years since we've been back there. These falls are pretty impressive and the kids enjoyed hiking around and learning more about the area.

The falls are broken into an Upper and Lower falls. the lower falls are only visible from a distance. The upper falls have boardwalks built close enough that you can feel the spray from the falls. The lower falls are a group of several falls packed tightly together, while the upper falls is just one big huge waterfall. Both are impressive. Aaron said he saw a picture in one of the local gas stations of a guy kyaking off the lower falls. The picture to the left is a good shot of the upper falls. The boardwalk takes you right up to the drop off. This one taken from another vantage point further away.

This last picture is of Shelby overlooking the lower falls. Kind of hard to see all the different falls, but it still looks impressive.

The first photo a the top of this post is from the upper falls area.

Well, that's pretty much our trip. The Olympics were awesome and we were really glad we had the satellite so we could see all the action. Go USA!