Yellowstone & the Grand Tetons: I'm Home

Saturday was the day, my friends!  It was the day, the three adventurers were about to embark on the journey to the two national parks that I would be calling my home, classroom, and teaching area for at least the next 11.5 months!  It was getting pretty real and intense, emotionally.  It was plenty of excited and anxious moments, but at the same time, I'm not going to lied I just cried because this was getting real and I was a day if not hours away from saying goodbye to Nate and Seany.

Driving past Buffalo Bill State Park...the views outside my window were incredible!

Around 9:00am MST, we packed up our site at Buffalo Bill's and headed further west!  Along the way we passed through the Shoshone National Forest - incredibly beautiful full or tall pines and lots of geology awesome-ness to stare at while driving...don't worry, I kept my eyes on the road!

Yellowstone National Park - Lots of trees and water!

Around an hour later (10:00am), we finally came to the entrance to Yellowstone National Park!!! I can successfully cross this place off my bucket list, and add to the fact I am an hour away from visiting this place for the next year!

Just look at this view!!?!?!

This place is so cool: geology everywhere! and not to mention the animals!  I was so disappointed!  As we were driving along the road, we come across a whole bunch of parked cars and people just staring into the forests.  I knew something extraordinary was coming up, so I had to pull over!!! And low and behold and just my luck with animals, everyone started to disperse as we were walking up towards them.  So we asked what they were all seeing, and one visitor states, 'oh there was a grizzly bear, but you can't see it now, it just went over the bend.' And my heart JUST DROPPED!!!!!! So upset!  It's a good thing I'm here for awhile, it has some time to redeem my disappointment I have...I just hope that I am behind closed doors or in a car when I see the next one!

Totally cheesin' for one of our last photos together as a tripod! ha.

The next place we stopped at were some of the sulfur steam vents.  You knew you were approaching one even with windows up: the smell of rotten eggs is hard not to notice!  It was really cool, you could see steam rise, and gas bubble up out of the pools!

Yellowstone Steam Vents & Pools

Then we went onto some more tourist attractions, like Dragon's Mouth Spring and the Mud Volcano (11:30am MST).  These were so cool!! I took some videos of them! Seeing this dark steam and bubbly stuff come from out of the holes and crevices in the rock was so cool!  I will repost them at a later date when I get more acquainted with using my phone on a more WiFi deal around here!

Dragon's Mouth Spring totally looked like a dragon!  Not because the waves that were created look like a lapping tongue, but because of the steam that looks like a dragon's breath!

A huge beast is definitely in there waiting to kill someone!

Mud Volcano!

Anyone ready for a hot, mud mask!?!?

After we left that, we decided to not leave until we saw Old Faithful!  I mean, come on, we're here, we might as well!  But along the way, we discover a very cool moment in time and in our country: where the continental divide is and where our water is determined to flow either East or West!  Such a moment!  Totally summit posed it here!

At 8,391 feet at the Continental Divide!

So when we finally go to the Old Faithful and had lunch around 12:30pm MST in the cafeteria-like area and then took a half-hour stroll around the Old Faithful Geyser and got a glimpse of some of the hot springs while we waited for Old Faithful to go off around 2:15pm!

Blue Star Hot Spring!

More Hot Springs!

And the moment finally arrived, we grabbed some boardwalk to sit at and waited for this moment of this wonderful geyser to go off!  I do not care if there were a billion people here to watch this with me stuck to their cameras, camcorders, and phones to record this moment, to me, this everyone in their life should see this happen at least once!  And I am glad I got to see it live and was able to take some photos of it!

It was a really cool and funny waiting experience as well!  There would be times when the seam would build up and a few splashes would pop out and you could here all the 'oooohs' and 'ahhhs' from everyone going and here all the clicking of their cameras!  But then she would tease us and make us wait longer.  I think she actually didn't go off until about 2:20-2:25pm.

She's gonna blow at 2:15pm MST!

Don't judge me I took a selfie when she finally went off!

Old Faithful!

After being around a like a few hundred people we decided to ska-daddle and head to our next and final destination for the day.  The Grand Teton National Park!  Sean drove with me while we followed Nate to the next site.  Sean would see some mountains and be like, 'Are those the Tetons?!' and I kept telling him, 'Trust me, you'll know when you see them!'  And then after 50+ miles of driving, we finally saw our first glimpse at those peaks!!! And my heart just stopped!

And there they were...the first glimpse of the Tetons!

Let me tell you...this sight was absolutely magical and breathtaking!  Nate kept stating how jealous he was of where I was going to be for school compared to where he will be.  I really couldn't come back with a 'yea, I know...' sort of remark, because I just kept staring in disbelief on how beautiful this sight was and that I am really going to be living here.  Yes, at that moment in time, it still hadn't hit me!

My New Backyard!

We register for a campsite near Jackson Lake on Colter Bay.  This was really nice, to be in walking distance of the Lake and being able to swim in some clear, cold mountain water!  After setting up camp, the boys went on a hike while I walked to the lake for a swim and a phone call with Brenna.

Such a great phone call!!  You know, being with two boys is fine and all, but sometimes you just need a female to talk to and someone close to your heart to keep you in check with things.  Plus, after some reality setting in about this big move, I was feeling homesick and needed some moral support!  Love you, B!  It was so funny, I called and she answered, 'Hey what are you doing?!?!' and all I reply with was a 'oh you know, just sitting on the lake shore of Jackson Lake overlooking the Tetons.'  And Brenna replies, 'I'm jealous.' Bah....crazy!

Jackson Lake on Colter Bay.

First Animal Sighting in the Grand Tetons...right outside the bathroom! Ha!

The rocks were so beautiful, polished and colorful!

And maybe I will end this blog entry with this photo: a sunset overlooking the Tetons.  I'll have to grab a panoramic view at some point!  My iPhone storage level is almost full so when I clean out my photos onto the MacBook, I'll be sure to send you all a legit Teton Sunset, soon!  Do not worry!

Sunday, is going to the biggest day so far in this journey and probably one of the most emotional.  When I finally make it to the Teton Science School for Wilderness First Responder and my new home and separate from my Lightning Jar boys.

TheChristyBel...in her backyard for the next 11.5 months!

Until later,
TheChristyBel