Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Yellowstone Revisited

My family went on a vacation to Yellowstone National Park in August 1969. Almost 40 years ago. When David and I returned to Southern Illinois after a visit with our daughter Leslie, in Idaho, we decided to go home via Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. We had a great trip and I was able to reminisce about my family trip. We tried to see some of the same places and think we were successful. (However, my memory may have not been quite accurate, but we felt good about it.)
My family trip was a disaster/memory extraordinaire. Now when we look back on it it's all laughs. But it wasn't at the time. Bad weather (Richard almost drowning, and dad saving him); mom getting lost (we didn't even realize she was lost and she cried because we didn't even miss her); car accident (trailer hitch was broken loose and had to have it welded back on [several times on the trip]) and dad having to go to jail and post bond because of the accident. (He made an illegal U-turn that was not posted as no u-turn. While two local boys who were drag racing didn't get ticketed.) Buying an OLD truck because our Volkswagen was stuck in gear so we had to tow it home from SD. Then the truck died, I don't remember what was wrong with it, but we (sisters and brothers) were riding in the towed Volkswagen. Cleaburn and I were playing with the gear shift in the van, and we managed to get it out of the stuck gear. So we told dad we "fixed" it (hoping we would not get in trouble for playing with the van.) So he checked and we were right. (A screw had gotten down in the gear shift area and stopped the shift from moving.) So we left the truck (I think we were in Kansas at this time) and continued driving home in the van (Volkswagen). (Dad went back for it later and towed it back home.) We didn't quite make it home when the brakes went out on the van, but dad drove it with only the emergeny brake. We finally made it home safely. What a trip.
So now to make a story (blog) short, back to our trip. David and I had a great time. While driving through Yellowstone, David read mom's journal. (We had transcribed her story onto our computer years ago.) It made us cry thinking about how mom felt and what we had experienced 40 years ago. But it was a good cry. So here are a few pictures of mine and David's trip. Hope you enjoy.


West Yellowstone, MT-Painted Bison
David and Cathy
You have to take pictures of the painted bison in West Yellowstone.
There are a lot of them.
Three Charging Bisons
Traffic Blocked


Artists Paintpots
Artist Point View of Lower Falls



Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone


Old Faithful

Grand Tetons

Grand Tetons Panoramic View

Cathy at Jenny Lake
This is one of my childhood memories

Cathy at Jenny Lake
The water is crystal clear, beautiful!


Old Faithful Erupting
(For those who have not seen it. The last half of it's performance sideways. Sorry.)


3 comments:

Leslie@leserleeslovesandhobbies said...

Jenny Lake looks nice. We'll have to visit the Tetons sometime. I hope you got pictures of all the painted Bison you could find. Did you notice that both sides are painted different? We didn't until the last one, so we'll have to go back someday and take more pictures. Glad you had fun.

dacjohns said...

We had a great time. We took quite a few pictures of the bison. We got both sides. One was even sculpted on one side with cliffs. Neat.

kaycei said...

I enjoyed reading the story about your family trip. How awful.