We woke up to an overcast cool morning. We were headed to Yellowstone and checking out, so we had breakfast and packed up our tent. It was going to be a short drive (1.5 hours) to Yellowstone but there were many places to stop along the way. We had to drive around the 50 site campground to get out, and realized we were across from the bathroom building but everyone else had to walk to this one building from quite a ways out. I can’t imagine lugging all the dishwashing water to the bathroom building every time to flush it down the toilet every time. Also the night before one of our spoons ended up still being in the dishwashing bowl and got dumped into the toilet.. So gross, but since we only had 5 spoons (we only packed what we absolutely needed), Katherine insisted I had to fish it out and we had to keep using it.. I would have thrown it out in an instant but instead we left it wrapped in hand soap over night, boiled it for 5 minutes in the morning. I still segregated it from the rest of our spoons and will see how long it takes until I am over it.. but enough of this that we shall never speak of again.
As we left the campground it started to rain a bit. The forecast was calling for on and off rain for most of the day. We stopped at some look out to admire the views which we couldn’t do on our way in initially due to lack of time. We were hoping to see wildlife on the drive out, and sure enough we came across a crowd of cars where there was a giant male elk by the side of the road. Some people were way too close to the elk, and the kids were commenting on it especially after attending so many ranger talks about wild animal safety.
We then stopped at the Jackson Lake Lodge. The upper area of the lodge was absolutely spectacular. With floor to ceiling windows showing the Great Teton range. They had two great fireplaces as well. What a place to spend a morning or afternoon. But we have 3 kids so we had to take them outside before they caused a scene.
Outside the view of the great Teton range was just as impressive. We met a family from Japan there. They were actually living in Michigan for two years and had driven out. They also had 3 young kids and it was great to be able to talk to them. They took a family picture for us and as they were also heading up to Yellowstone in the coming days we said we might see each other there! We stopped to use the bathrooms before getting back in the van. Toby has been into rating the bathrooms we stop at (and there are many) and he rated this one highly. It’s been very amusing to hear about his review of the bathrooms. He sometimes even goes into the stalls so he can do a thorough review. There was a man there going on about how half the automated taps weren’t working (honestly that seems to always be the case).
We passed by other national park campgrounds (at which point we were quite a ways from Jenny lake and couldn’t imagine getting up early enough from there to get a parking spot at some of the trail heads). We continued on our drive and came across vast areas that had burned due to forest fires some time ago. One section even came very close to one of the visitor centres. We missed taking a family photo by the Great Teton National Park sign but we did get a family photo at the Yellowstone National Park Entrance sign. The road started to climb once we entered Yellowstone. At this point it started to rain more and with just trees on either side our first impression wasn’t anything like when we first got to the Badlands national park or Great Teton National park. After driving on narrow windy roads we eventually got to our campground. While checking in I overhead the park staff beside me giving bear safety tips to another person checking in (go to the bathroom in pairs at night, don’t leave anything out, etc). I asked about the weather in the park and the person at the check in counter said it was just two weeks ago when they had snow, sleet, rain and thunder and had people leave early! They said the weather really is unpredictable in Yellowstone. The next few nights were also one of the few times the campground of 400 sites wasn’t full. Hopefully it wasn’t because of the forecast.
After getting to our site (which was conveniently across from the bathroom for the sake of our kids), we set up camp during the break in rain and then headed to the laundry/shower building a couple miles down the road by the entrance to the campground. The laundry building must have had 30 to 40 washers and dryers, and was always staffed. Kids worked on their school work while we did much needed laundry. I charged our 1000W camping battery which was almost depleted after so many days without power. The battery charges in about an hour and has been very handy to recharge any of our devices multiple times and run our cooler for a large chunk of time. I also boiled some water and made some quick instant ramen for the kids as they were staring to get hangry. They played on their own for most of the time having a great time without fighting in the woods beside the building, which in hindsight in bear territory might not have been wise as a parent but they were at least loud enough and there were many people around.
The showers here were even more expensive than Great Teton at $5.25 US a person, but didn’t have a time limit. We got 6 “complementary” showers for our 3 night stay, but with 5 people that would just last a night. The lady at the check in said we could take the kids in with us without having it count as another person for the shower but it turned out at least according to the guy here that only kids 5 and under were free. So after spending nearly $40 US doing 6 loads of laundry (including all of our sleeping bags which were also needing to be washed) , we all took a shower and quickly used up 5 out of our 6 free complimentary showers. The shower building however was probably one of the nicest campground showers I had ever been in to be fair (everyone rated it highly). Feeling great after the showers and clean laundry, we headed back to our campsite where we made dinner in between the rain which started to fall and made it an early night as the rain continued on.
Trip Around The World 
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