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.

Trauma at Tomato Days

*Warning: This post has some pretty graphic photos of Steve's arm injury. They will be after the story, just in case you want to read but don't want to see.

Well this morning started out well...Steve and I went down to Elias' new house and picked up my nephews Ross, Ren and my mom. We all headed over to the Hooper Park to celebrate Tomato Days. After lots of carnival games, blow-up playhouses, and hot dogs, mom took Ren home for a nap. Ross, Steve and I stayed to watch the highly anticipated "Sponge Drop". Supposedly a small plane was supposed to fly over, drop wet sponges with prizes attached, and everyone would go home happy. That is NOT what happened. What we thought was called a gyroplane, now called a powered parachute, paraplane, powered paraglider, etc. flew from the West, circled around and came back over the field filled with people to drop sponges. They started dropping the sponges and Ross, Steve and I moved forward to get closer...which I actually think was a good move. The paraplane started getting lower and lower and I thought that was strange, but everything was happening so fast, there wasn't much time to think about it. Ross and I barely missed the plane hitting us, but Steve was not as lucky. I turned around and saw Steve diving to the ground, and the paraplane running over a whole bunch of people. It was horrible; I felt like bodies were flying everywhere. Steve stood up and was bleeding from his arm. I said, "Steve you're bleeding." He didn't even realize it till I said something. It turns out Steve was knocked over by the paraplane; he didn't have time to get out of the way.

There was so much commotion. People started coming over asking if we were ok. Steve was pinching his arm and a ton of blood was still coming out. Some off duty nurses and EMTs came to the rescue, laid him down, and put some napkins over his wound. When they put some ice on his head, is when I realized he had been hit in the head too. We learned some little girls had been hit and one or more of them had broken legs. A Life Flight helicopter came and was getting ready to take away one of them when they put Steve on a back board and started taking him to the ambulance. During all this I was freaking out and trying to call mom and make sure Ross was ok. Ross was taking it so well. He was so concerned about Steve and the little girls. He wasn't crying or anything though. Mom and Elias got there right when they were taking Steve away so they took Ross and I went with Steve in the ambulance.

While in the ambulance, Deon, the EMT and a family friend, put in an I.V. and had him in a next brace. We went to McKay Dee and they did a CT on his head and did some kind of X-ray on his arm. They just put ice on his head. They cleaned out his cut which is about two inches wide and cut all the way to the bone. The doctor stitched up the inside and then the outside. Steve also has a big bruise on his knee from where he fell and a pretty big bruise on his shoulder too.

Steve was doing so well. He was laughing with the people that were taking care of him in the park and continued making jokes and laughing at the hospital. He is such a good husband, he said he was acting like that to keep me from freaking out even more. And that helped him to stay calm and keep a level head.

The doctor gave him an antibiotic to keep an infection from developing in his arm and a couple pain pills for his head. They aren't concerned about his head, because he didn't lose consciousness and wasn't complaining of pain.

So we are home now and doing ok. We had a fun time watching it on the news and it will be a good story to tell for a while.

Now for the pictures:

Here is a video of the accident happening. Steve is the one you see being knocked down right before the camera drops.