We went on a trip

I would say vacation, but that implies that we relaxed, ate too much, laughed, swam, and had a blast. Well, we laughed, swam (a little), and had a generally good time.

Let me explain. We headed out on Tuesday morning for what was to be a fun little 4 day adventure to Jackson, Yellowstone, and Cody. Brent had a doctors appointment so we decided to make it fun. Little did we know what was in store. I should have known it would be an adventure when Corbin woke up Sunday night throwing up...

I'll let the pictures do the talking (and yes, there are a lot, and yes, I did only post a few of them).

Exploring Jackson

After the doctors appointment we grabbed lunch at this little gem of a sub shop. It is delicious. If you're in Jackson, find it and eat there. You'll be glad you did.

We thought the boys (when I say boys, I really mean Bridger because Corbin didn't really care what we did) would have fun riding the stage coach. I know it is so touristy...but what can you do? We were on vacation at this point.

pulling up to the station

Mom and Corbin riding in style.

Bridger and Dad riding in style.

Bridger loved this arch and what is a vacation to Jackson without this shot?

Lets just say Bridger was a fan of most of the statues they had standing around the shops.

We stopped in the town square to let the boys run for a little bit. Bridger found a squirrel and they played peek-a-boo for a while.

Waiting for the squirrel to pop up.

Corbin showing off his walking skills. He's getting pretty good at it.

Another fascination that Bridger had was this big foot statue. He loved the thing. So naturally, we took a picture.

Bar J
This is where the fun really began.

We walked along the paths with these little statues depicting different scenes from the area.

Bridger thought this bear was pretty neat.

Waiting for the show to begin.
What was the fun you might ask? Here is how our night at the Bar J went. I felt a little queasy while we waited in line to get our seats, waited for dinner to start, and stood in line for our food. I got Corbin situated with his dinner and looked at mine for about two minutes. That is when I decided I needed some fresh air. As soon as I got into the fresh air I knew I needed a bathroom, fast! I barely made it into the first stall before I threw up more than I remember throwing up in a really long time. I thought I would be fine for a while. Wrong. As soon as I took a sip of water and Sprite, I had to rush to the bathrooms again. I went in a final time to try watching the show. After about two songs I knew I better just stay out side. I gathered up my stuff, handed a sleeping Corbin off to Brent and said, when you're done, meet me outside. I'm sick. Bridger was loving the show so I didn't think there would be a problem. Two minutes later I hear a screaming Bridger and knew we were headed back to the hotel. He had somehow locked his legs around the bench and face planted on the cement floor. Oh, did I mention that through all of this we're sitting on the very. front. row? It was lovely. We got back to the car and I emptied my stomach once more before heading home for the night. Mixed in there somewhere (I can't remember where), Corbin also threw up a little, but not enough for it to be horrific.

This is the scene when we got back to the hotel.
Yeah, we were having the time of our lives!

Corbin and I threw up through the night and Brent felt queasy. When I woke up in the morning I surprisingly felt pretty good. Bridger had been so excited to go see the animals that I couldn't give up and head home. I told Brent that we could make it to Cody and see how we feel.
Corbin then began to throw up again. I quickly called his doctor in Evanston and she called in a prescription to Jackson. That little pill saved our lives...or our sanity! While we were at Smiths waiting to get the prescription filled Corbin proceeded to throw up all over. Brent even got to wash his clothes out in the bathroom. It was awesome. We took the magic pill and headed on our way.
This was quickly turning into a trip and not a vacation!

Yellowstone

If you click on the picture you can see a small dot. That, my friends is a wolf. It was chasing a herd of elk. Outside of any national park. Awesome.

Bridger has entered the "I must look silly in most pictures" phase. Its fun!

Snow banks like these greeted us as we entered the park.
Things were not looking up for us! We packed shorts.

We saw lots of buffalo.

The fish weren't out yet. Bridger liked the bridge.

As we drove over Sylvan pass the ice on the lake made us a little nervous. We were hoping that Cody didn't still have snow.

As we left the park Brent was saying how he was a little disappointed that we didn't see a bear. Literally the next corner we came around there were cars pulled off the side of the road looking at what? A Bear!! We were all very excited to see our first bear in the wild. It was a baby grizzly just scrounging for some food.
Seeing it made up for the semi-crappy day we'd had.
The day also included eating our picnic lunch in the car because it was raining.
I was really beginning to doubt my decision to continue on with our "vacation".
The plus side is that Corbin was getting some much needed rest. He slept most of the day.

Cody
Luckily by the time we got to Cody we were all feeling a little bit better. We checked into our motel, ate some dinner, and drove around looking at the town. It is beautiful. We found this little minature golf course and thought it would be fun.

Bridger had so much fun. After every ball went in the hole he would say "just call me Tiger Woods" or if it was our ball "just call you Tiger Woods". It was funny.

Corbin was content for the first 9 holes and then he had had enough. He wanted to get in on the action.

Bridger giving Brent some pointers.

While we were eating dinner Brent and Bridger had the following conversation: "Dad, why does that guy have a pirate thing on his eye?" (talking about the man sitting not 10 feet away with a patch on his eye). "His eye is sore and it makes it feel better" Bridger: "Oh, what's wrong with his eye?" Brent: "I don't know, just eat your dinner". Awesome.

We got up Thursday morning feeling pretty darn good. No one had thrown up and we got some much needed rest. We headed over to the Buffalo Bill historical museum. I don't remember the official name. It is gorgeous. We skimmed it and took 2 hours.

Bridger practicing his horse riding skills.

I think this picture is mandatory.
After we had our history dose, we headed back for more fun in the park.
We were feeling so good that we even got some snacks out of the cooler to try.

Yellowstone: Part 2

Yellowstone lake was looking gorgeous as we drove around it.

Once again, Brent was wishing he could see more bears. I told him to be content that he saw one. And then...we pulled up to see two bears out in the meadow. For some reason the picture of both of them didn't work. Oh well. There was a grizzly bear and a black bear. When they are side by side it isn't too hard to tell them apart. Pretty darn cool!

Brent got out to get closer and Bridger was wondering why I wouldn't let him get out. Call me a protective mother, but when there isn't much separating my child from a full size bear, he's staying in the car!

The weather cleared up for a little bit and we were able to have a picnic. This little campground was perfect. Far enough off the road to feel like the woods, and right by the river. The boys were loving being outside.

It is kind of hard to see but there were a bunch of buffalo in this area. There were also a bunch of people. The people thought that since they were on a path that the buffalo were not a hazard. Seriously, people were within feet of the buffalo. We thought they were crazy, took the picture, and kept driving.

Pretty cool picture. It hasn't been touched. Nice work, Brent!

This is how exciting Bridger thought the falls were!
We would have explored more of the falls but we only had one stroller. We bought a second one for times like this (both boys sleeping, not wanting to walk, etc.) but didn't realize it was zip tied. Do you think we had a pair of scissors or clippers handy when we needed them? Nope! So our little falls excursion was cut short. It hurt both our backs to carry Corbin very far. He's getting big!

We made our way to Old Faithful only to learn that it was another hour before it was expected to go off again. It was about 5 pm at this point and we still had a 2 1/2 hour drive before getting back to Jackson. We decided to just take some pctures, grab some ice cream and head out. We were all tired by this point. The boys were holding up amazingly well, I might add.

This is the final picture we have of our happy times! Approximately one minute after I took this Brent looked down at Corbin and he was covered in throw up. No really, covered. All over the front of him, inside his jacket, pooled in the stroller. It was lovely. He had made no sound, hadn't cried or anything. Good thing Brent decided to look down so we noticed before we headed into the store. We quickly changed his clothes, threw the stroller away and got back on the road. Well, not before Bridger got a little ice cream. Poor kid, that is all he wanted at Old Faithful!

So we were done. I just wanted to eat some dinner and go to bed.
Bye Bye Yellowstone. It felt like it took forever to get out of there. Brent and I both mentioned that it felt like we were trapped there and couldn't get out (you know, all the windy roads and slow speed limits).

This is the view that greeted us as we came around Jackson Lake.
It is kind of how we were all feeling too!
Luckily Corbin wasn't sick the rest of the night, but we cut our Friday short when Bridger complained that his tummy hurt.

Whew! If you made it this far you are a champ. I'm tired just writing it all down. The whole trip wasn't horrible. We just laugh about it now...and we did as it was happening. I guess everyone has to have those experiences as a parent, right?! The most stressful part was hoping that the boys were ok and praying they didn't lose their lunch (or breakfast, or dinner) in the car.

Maybe next year we'll try "vacationing" in Yellowstone, not just driving through as fast as we can!

Just for the record
We saw the following animals:
wolf
elk x alot
moose x 2 or 3
buffalo x alot
bear x 3
deer x a couple
antelope x alot
geese

* Other funny thing Bridger said*
"Slow down, Mom, you're making this thing fly off my lap"