We started today in our little basement apartment after a fantastic night of sleep. I loved getting up with a cup of coffee and being able to just sit on the couch for a minute. All the laundry is clean so we re-packed our bags and got ready for week 2 of our journey.

We headed into downtown Cody for a little exploring. Cody was the home of Buffalo Bill. So lots of things bear his namesake and likeness.

Anyone ever seen a 4 person paddle board? Well you have now 🤪

Michael loved the Bob Ross Positive Energy Drink… little happy tree over here, and little one over there

We picked up some Cody, Wyoming souvenirs, including some Buffalo and Elk Sausage (darn those free samples) and some huckleberry Lip balm.

We may have fallen in love with Wyoming… I even caught Mike checking real estate offerings.

We couldn’t help thinking of Jimmy and Karen Moore when we saw this honey for sale… they pumped it right from the tub into your honey bear.

And upstairs we excelled at finding the Queen thanks to Jimmy and Karen 🐝

We left Cody and headed toward Yellowstone. We got caught in some road construction and decided to stop off at the Buffalo Bill Dam – you know we love a Dam tour.🤣🤣

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I have always wanted to see Yellowstone Nation Park and was almost giddy as we stopped for our picture. We met a nice family from California, and we traded picture courtesies – we took theirs, they took ours. 📸

If you’re not familiar with Yellowstone, it is HUGE. We broke our visit into parts. We entered Yellowstone today at the East gate, and we’re going to depart the South Gate. Later this week, we are staying in West Yellowstone so we will explore that side then.

I bought a trail/guide book for Yellowstone and Grand Teton in Cody, and am Clark Griswold-ing the crap out of our time in the parks!

We were in the park for about a hot minute when we spotted a big brown lump in this field… and then it moved. Bison!

Then we saw 2 more bison… wait, those aren’t bison. Those are goobers in bison hats ♥️

Then we drove a bit more and tah-day Elk!

We traveled on through the park and were amazed at the dramatic changes in scenery, especially when we got the areas effected by the 2009 forest fires that burned so much of the park.

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We stopped along a beach and decided to open Mom’s Restaurant right there in Yellowstone

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Our new location has plenty of seating and gotten great reviews, although the bathrooms are a bit primitive 🤣

We headed on, and stopped at the West Thumb Geyser Basin. This is an area within the Caldera (crater made in the magma chamber of a volcano after it explorers) of Yellowstone where the gases are constantly coming to the surface. The color indicates the heat of the water. These are amazing to see, and some were so deep you couldn’t see the bottom.

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We left the basin and continued heading south. And look, we crossed the Continental Divide again (last time was at Logan’s Pass in Glacier National Park.)

There was one more stop we wanted to see on this side of the park… the Hidden Falls.

These falls were gorgeous! And the boys (and Mike and I) could climb down and put our feet in. The water was definitely chilly but not as cold as Glacier.

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We traveled south leaving Yellowstone and crossed into Grand Teton National Park.

We didn’t plan to really do a lot in Grand Teton today but there we did stop at a few overlooks.

These Mountains are absolutely beautiful although they were a little obscured by smoke from the forest fires in Utah and Oregon. Isn’t it crazy that fire so far away can effect the view in Wyoming?

We went by the Visitors Center to get the paper, guide and map photos so We can maximize every second of our time here.

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We rented a cabin at Jackson Lake Lodge tonight. The cabin itself was fine but the Lodge was a different story.

Because it is a National Park Lodge, they said they had to follow strict federal guidelines regarding Covid. But the guidelines seemed a bit wonky to me. For example, the “diner” style restaurant was take out only, but the fancy $$$$ restaurant was eat in. Plus once we all got our take out, everyone just took their to go plates and sat outside at the tables together. And then, they didn’t have water to put in glasses, and had no bottled water but you could buy canned water?!?! So Mike had to have canned water… $8 canned water… Apparently they went to the glacier and canned it on a mountain top for that price 🤪

One other thing, the pool and playground were closed. They didn’t really advertise these changes, which I thought was a bit sneaky… seriously could you imagine coming here with a 3 and 4 year old and find out the pool and playground were closed?!? Woo, I’d be hot mad.

Now that I’ve said the bad, here’s the good. The hotel itself was really nice – we were impressed that they had old fashioned metal keys.

And the views were amazing. Again you’re just going to have to take our word for it – the Grand Tetons are there but it’s just a bit hazy. We will get closer tomorrow.

There was a mile long trail right off the back of the hotel and we were about to take it and then we saw this sign…

The crowd here was just WAY different than what we’ve gotten used to on this trip. I’m so glad we were in a cabin and not the main lodge.

Our little cabin was tiny but it worked. After we walked back, we filled the cooler with ice, and then had another night of playing Phase 10. No one has made it all the way to Phase 10 yet but we’ll get there.

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We finally called it a night around 9:30… seriously the sun stays up forever! We are tucked in and ready a full day tomorrow. I’ve got a full Clark Griswold day for us tomorrow 😉