UEA in Yellowstone

Sorry it has been so long. There has been a lot going on and I got out of the blogging mode. Over UEA break Steve and I decided to go to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. Now if you don't know what UEA break is, it's the Utah Education Association's yearly conference. Now you may be thinking, "Why is a teacher not partaking in a conference for educators?" The truth is, I've been to it at least 3 times in my 5 1/2 years of teaching and I think that is a pretty good track record. So this year I took a real break. We wanted to stay at the KOA in West Yellowstone, but they closed the day before we wanted to go. So the next closest place was the KOA in Jackson Hole. Jackson Hole, we found out, is still quite a ways from the actual entrance to Yellowstone. You first have to go through the Grand Tetons then into Yellowstone. Unfortunately Yellowstone was also doing major road construction and had a active fire while we were there. So it took even longer to get through all of that mess. If you haven't been toYellowstone or don't remember, the majority of the park is on one grand loop road. From the entrance we went in through you could go left and go to Old Faithful and the Basin Geysers or right and go to everything else. The first day we decided to go right. It would have been a lot faster to go to the right and come down the left, even if we didn't have time to go to Old Faithful, but there was a small strip of road closed down right above the West entrance. So we went about 3/4 the way around the loop to go the Artist's Paint Pots, then had to turn around and go all the way back. It was dark the whole way back. We saw more animals in the dark then we had seen all day. We passed multiple HERDS of elk along the side of the road, almost ran into a buffalo casually walking in the middle of the road, a few deer eating on the side of the road, and one frightening cow elk that jumped in front of us.
Well enough talking...let's see some pictures and I'll describe them if needed. They are in no particular order.

We happened upon a cattle drive in Wyoming.

Our KOA Kabin at the Snake River KOA.

The other side.

Our cute little "Kabin." Just behind Steve taking the picture was a drop off to the shore of the Snake River. Pretty neat!

On the shore of the Snake River.

Steve chucking a big rock in the Snake River.

Me about to make the big plunge.

The natural slide we found at our KOA.

The antler arch in Jackson.

"Champagnenenene," our car, under the antler arch.

Sarah holding up the Tetons.

Steve holding up the Tetons.

The active fire in Yellowstone.

An acid lake. Anyone for a swim?

Need a drink?

One of two waterfalls in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

A huge glacial bolder.

Cool overview of one of the basins.

I like the blowing one behind us. It only took me like 10 tries to get it right...that's why we look so excited!

I love this picture.

This was the sunset when we went to the Artist Paint Pots.

It's hard to see, but there is the buffalo strolling across the road. It was awesome. We could see his breath blowing out and there was frost all over his legs.

We also took quite a few tries to get this one right. Steve ran and jumped to get in this picture.

This is Jenny Lake. Steve calls it Sarah Lake because "it's sooo beautiful!" Isn't he sweet?

Here is Steve looking cute, putting his waterproof shoes in the water off the dock.

We decided to carve our names in the tree stump. It was taking forever because of the wood grain.

So Steve had a great idea just to put SC^2. (SC squared)

Can you tell it was snowing...and cold!

One of three times we passed the Continental Divide.

Awesome buffalo with hot pots behind him.

This elk was bellowing. It was so cool!

A panoramic of Jenny Lake. Sorry it's so small.

More entries to be made...hopefully soon. But it is now past my bed time.