Jason

The prairie was far more impressive that I expected it to be. We didn't venture far from the visitor center as it was hot and we didn't take water, but the rolling grassy hills, the puffs of clouds in a striking blue sky, and the variety of wild flowers everywhere...it was just striking. Might need to come back to the preserve for a day trip sometime, it's only a couple hours from home.

I love the mountains. Day one was spectacular. God is so good, and I love enjoying his creation.

We started early to make our way across Wyoming to Grand Teton. The drive was amazing. The landscape changed at least 5 times, and sometimes was even different on either side of the highway, with lush green rolling hills on the south side of the valley with multi-colored rocky crags on the north side. We played tag with views of the waters of Wind River Canyon into Dubois, where we had the privilege of meeting sasquatch leading a jackalope riding a unicorn. Yeah, you read that right. Once we got to the park, the kids knocked out their Jr Ranger badges like bosses and then we skipped the hike and just played at the beach under the supervision of the majestic Grand Teton. Simply breathtaking views.

I love Yellowstone and have been several times in my life. This day was a little overwhelming with the crowds at every stop, and even between stops. But then...we had a roadside snowball fight and finally made it to Lamar Valley, the Serengeti of North America. It sure lived up to its name! Bison herds everywhere. I have the bison tracker at 101, but there were hundreds over the nearly 30 miles. We even had a bison traffic jam. But cooler than the bison was seeing a wolf in action. It was feasting on a carcass not far from the road, and there were a couple birds that were very NOT happy about his portion control.

As part of the Jr Ranger books the kids got to do the math for predicting the next Old Faithful eruption. The one we viewed started at 2:07pm and lasted 3 min 58 sec (on the longer side!) so the math worked out to a 3:50pm eruption and the actual time for the next one was 3:42pm. Our observed eruption data: https://geysertimes.org/eruption.php?id=1548360

We contemplated skipping Craters of the Moon because the drive was mostly out of the way. So glad we didn't! Hiking in the lava fields was otherworldly. The pictures just can't capture how strikingly different this is. We descended into the Indian Tunnel cave to play but climbed back out. Others informed us you can hike through it, then slide on scrabble down and out through a smallish hole and then hike back on top on the lava rocks to the entrance. I'm sure glad they enjoyed that!

We have mostly eaten food from what we packed, but we stopped at a roadside diner for a late dinner. Michelle and the kids had breakfast for dinner, and I had a pastrami philly. We hadn't had much to eat and probably did our most hiking, so we ate very heartily. We also saw legit cowboys with spurs on their boots!

We didn't make it down to Nez Perce. We decided to slow down a little, sleep in, and get to the homesteading conference hotel. But we found a more direct stop at Travelers Rest State Park in Montana, one of the only archaeologically verified campsites of the Lewis & Clark expedition. The kids got an alternative Jr Ranger badge for the trail, and we got to meet a Salish warrior. He played his flute for us and shared some of his cultural heritage as well. We took a quick walk back into the park and the kids got to play in the water at the edge of the river for a little bit before we got back on the road.

Got our bearings at the conference learning about sustainable land/animal use on small homesteads and ate some food truck food, but the big day of sessions for us is tomorrow. After an afternoon nap we headed next door to the indoor water park. Kids had a blast at the splash pad and in the wave pool, and the older two tackled the water slides with great excitement. I enjoyed the hot tub.

We made it to the early sessions today. Michelle and I split up to learn along our interests. I attended a session on establishing orchards and the fig production in the morning, and we jointly attended a Q&A panel for the last session from several youtubers we follow. The kids got to pet some goats, sheep, cows, and horses, do some vendor shopping, and got some fresh lemonade. The boys got to play in the sawdust with some other kids during my fruit session, which was probably the favorite thing they did before we took them to a playground at the end of the day. The playground, btw, was very nostalgic. It was almost a carbon copy of the Longacre park in Fairview Heights, IL, that my kids played at in their early years. Might have teared up a bit as Eli and my grandkids played like my older kids played back in the day.

Craziest thing I learned today: most of the bagged apples you buy at the store were picked up to a year ago.