Day 41: Just One of those Days

It was one of those days. Emotions are getting high as we’re all tired and realize it’s our last day in Yellowstone. Our time with Winnie is wrapping up which makes us all sad, but we are also just a couple of days from being home again.

I had wanted to wake up early to get out to Lamar Valley to see the animals. Our whole crew was so sleepy we didn’t wake up until nearly 7. Once we were finally on the road I missed the critical turn to get to the valley causing us to drive an extra hour. On the way back to the right road we saw an injured bison walking on the road which had everyone feeling sad knowing its fate wasn’t good. When we finally got on the right road the first animal we saw was a chipmunk. Which we then, unfortunately, ran over with the car. Yup, that is how our great animal exploring adventure began. Sometimes you just have to have one of these days to help appreciate the other 40 days of the trip even more.

Once we were deeper into Lamar Valley we were able to see hundreds of bison: some very huge herds and many lone males evenly spaced out across the fields. We headed to Trout Lake where we did the 1.2 mile hike, saw a fish, lots of flowers, and a rodent of some kind.

At this point it was lunch time already so we headed out in search of a place to watch bison and enjoy taking it all in. We found a great lunch place on Slough Creek where we could hear the water, see a few lone bison as well as a large herd in a nearby field.

We had plans for other hikes to waterfalls and Mammoth Hot Springs, but given the vibe of the morning, we decided to cut the afternoon short and head back to the RV for a reset. We did make one stop on the way back at the Petrified Tree. It was underwhelming, and while there it started to rain and get windy. It reminded us to be thankful for the months of incredible weather we’ve had across all of our RV adventures; weather really only impacted two days across 100+ days total.

Back at the RV, the boys had quiet time reading their Kindles, I took a nap, and Rob caught up on email and started writing our for sale ad for Winnie. Once up again, I played dual card games with the boys while Rob made dinner.

Rob led the rally to get us back out in the park for our final day. We did the one mile lower loop at Mammoth Hot Springs and stopped by the overlook at Undine Waterfalls, skipping the hike part to keep morale higher.

We wanted to give the wildlife spotting another go, so we headed back to Lamar Valley. There was a 6 mile side road that we thought might yield us some moose, bear, or wolf sightings. Despite the 45 minutes of Rob’s expert negotiating through a crazy bumpy gravel road, we didn’t get to mark anything new off of our list, but did see a couple of deer, a bison, an elk and beautiful scenery.

Back on the main road again we were able to see many more bison which were all quite active walking around and eating. The highlight of the drive for the boys was when they had rangers using lights and sirens to try to get the bison off the road. The kids also became deliriously tired at this point (9:30 p.m.) and began talking about designing cars with crazy silly features, which had them giggling nearly the entire hour drive back to the RV.

Once back, the boys quickly went to bed, and Rob and I started getting ready for our drive day tomorrow. We were also reflecting on this amazing six-week experience exploring eight new national parks together together as a family.