My memories of Yellowstone date from four years ago and are a blur of driving through the enormous park while towing a sizable U-Haul and being consumed as I processed all the ramifications of coming back on active duty. We dashed across the country to buy a house (sight unseen for Flight), catching a few major landmarks at a speed only surpassed by the Griswolds, and I jumped right into teaching Engineering well before we were remotely settled. I vaguely remember seeing colorful Paint Pots and enormous bison, but took little note of anything else. I am eager to savor our upcoming stretch in America’s first National Park.

But first, to WEST Yellowstone to, as Flight put it best, “Come Down” from our Grand Targhee experience and try to process that. We pulled into the Grizzly RV Campground and were very pleasantly surprised by the accommodations, perhaps the nicest we’ve yet seen. Each spot had incredibly lush green grass and this was so unusual that Flight made it a point to take off his shoes while telling me he was doing so because he wanted to feel that (pointing) grass under his feet while he cooked dinner. We both joked that it clearly far surpassed our backyard crab grass lawn in Maryland (unless, of course, you want to buy our house, then it’s exactly like that). We relaxed and regrouped, enjoyed dinner and visited with our friends from Seattle.

The next morning I was lounging in bed (I was writing) when Flight came in to give me the morning report. First he informed me that he learned why the lawn is so lush. Thinking I knew where he was going, I sat up and immediately asked, “Oh no, are they spraying chemicals right NOW?” Pause, “No, not chemicals. Sprinklers.” That took a moment to register and I realized we’d left all our fabric camp chairs out. “Shoot. Are the chairs all soaked?” “Well, sorta. There’s ice on all the seats.” !!! It had been a little chilly sleeping with the windows open…

Next he tells me that we are now officially in Bear Country (we’d both failed to pick up on that even given the name of the RV Park) and he’d been reviewing the precautions we should be taking.  I say “reviewing” because we’ve both been camping in bear country and should be well versed in the safety measures. For those of you new to the experience, the most important of these safeguards is to never leave any food (or anything that came into contact with food) out at your campsite, especially overnight. Oops. We left a bag with the remains of our swordfish dinner dangling from a hook on the back of Davista. All night. Knowing full well the answer my brain half formed the clueless question, “Bears don’t like fish, do they?” and I had this image pop into my head:

Flight then mentioned we also (technically) should have put the grill away. He summarized our oversight perfectly.  He growled and pantomimed his impression of a bear swatting at something before he said, “Connected to the propane tank. Pop (big hand movement). Pshshshshssh (propane leaking out of the RV tank and hose as he continues growling and swatting). What could go wrong?” Hoo boy.  Lesson learned.

City slickers.  Probably inside their rig posting on Facebook.

I don’t like to admit this, but social media did allow us to connect with some friends from our Park City days who were staying at their family cabin just outside of West Yellowstone. Facebook is good like that. When Flight uses it, because I don’t.

While our Seattle friends were exploring Yellowstone proper (they had but one day to do so), we had an “ADMIN” day, meaning we meal planned, schooled, did laundry, grocery shopped, and relaxed before reconnecting with them in the evening to see a musical production at the Playmill Theater. There are two grocery stores in West Yellowstone and, while neither is in the same ballpark as Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, I was please to see that they had some standards:

Our Park City friends recommended one over the other and I was pretty stoked to run into them there as they, too, were replenishing their stores.  Impatient with my visiting over produce and eager to get back to camp, Keeper kept assuring me that we had everything we needed and could go now. After promising to visit more with them at the Playmill, (they too had tickets to see The Little Mermaid), I pulled myself away from our friends and returned to shopping. I asked Keeper for his patience because I had to meal plan (again) on the fly since some of the basic ingredients I had assumed we would find not be located (Who doesn’t carry chicken breasts that haven’t previously been frozen?) . Satisfied with our revised plan and all the goodies to support it, we headed back to join the fam before our night on the town.

There are so many ways The Little Mermaid can be done terribly and the potential for having to just sit through such a production was being explored by my inner doubter. I cannot say how utterly delightful the musical was. The whole presentation was fantastic – the sets (our girls excitedly identified (in louder than stage whispers) all the other Disney references in Ariel’s Grotto), the singing (dead on, I thought as I mouthed all the lyrics from the movie version), and the acting (even while on skate shoes to simulate swimming) were all brilliant. Always drawn to the characters far more interesting than the princesses, I was captivated by the portrayal of both Sebastian the Crab and Ursula the Sea Witch. Happily buoyed by the entertainment, we chatted with our Park City friends and vowed to meet them at their cabin the next day and then enjoyed dinner with our Seattle friends.

At the Slippery Otter, we learned there would be a 30-minute or so wait. The other mom turned to me and said, “I think I would like a beer.” I hadn’t realized how great that sounded and gushed my agreement in two words, “Me too.” She then turned to our husbands and said, “We’re going to have a beer.” When they moved to follow us, she clarified, “No. WE are going to have a beer. You guys can stay here with this,” gesturing to the five kids. While I’m sad to have missed Firebolt’s dance moves (maybe?), our grown up girl time was very welcomed and a rare treat on this adventure.  After dinner of bison and elk burgers, we bid our Seattle friends farewell (they were moving on to Glacier in the morning) and looked forward to seeing our Park City friends at their cabin on the lake.

Well how do you top a total solar eclipse from the top of a mountain?

You don’t.  You don’t even try.  What you do is you chill out with some friends, so we did.

We had made plans to stay in the same RV park in West Yellowstone with the friends with whom we’d watched the eclipse prior to their moving on up to Glacier NP and our moving on into Yellowstone proper.  If you’ve never been to West Yellowstone, it’s probably not what you would picture.  It’s a postage stamp of a town just into Montana and bordering (outside of) the national park that serves as a jumping off point into the park as well as sort of an overflow campground and accommodation spot for people who couldn’t get any place to stay inside the park.

On the surface it’s a little cheesy, with about a mile and a half square grid packed with hotels and RV parks, punctuated by T-shirt & souvenir shops, mid-brow eating establishments with flashy lights out front and the odd “adventure park.”  But I have to tell you that that RV park was really nice.  Full hookups, lush green grass (first time we’d seen that in a while), and plenty of space.  And the town has a charm to it if you know where to look, which fortunately our friends did (he grew up in Montana, not far away from where we were).

They arrived first and were told that though we wouldn’t be parked next to each other, we were quite close and “in the same row.”  “Row” must have a different meaning there, not to mention “close.”  Perhaps they just meant we were at the same RV park.  No matter though, we all had bikes, and were exhausted from the day’s events anyway.  The kids did a little mini movie night using our outdoor TV (first we’d used it!) and crashed out.

The next day was our friends’ only day to explore Yellowstone, so they spent the entire day doing that, while we were grateful for a “down day.”

Laundry, relaxing, bike ride, relaxing, teepee building, relaxing…

One of the W Yellowstone gems our friends knew about and had dialed us into was the Playmill theater, which has an in-residence theater group that puts on various plays throughout the summer.  They were doing The Little Mermaid that evening, and we’d gotten tickets for it.  There was definite cheesiness potential, but I have to say that they did an extremely good job with it — everyone was entertained.  They even do an intermission in which all the players come out with play-themed treats that they’d made themselves — root beer floats, brownies, “poopcorn,” etc.  Good clean fun, and well done.

Thereafter we moved down the street to the Slippery Otter for more hearty high ranch food (read: elk and bison burgers, etc).  Firebolt, perhaps inspired by the busking musicians in Bozeman, decided she’d see if she could earn some spare change by doing an aggressive dance to the ’80s music that was playing outside while we waited for a table.  It was an interesting musical interpretation, and an interesting face to accompany it (she later designated it her “bear face,” and I can’t disagree).

Alas, only about 21 cents taken in, and that may have been the seed money.

What was fantastic, though, and spurred later conversation about the important stuff, i.e. where we want to settle after this adventure, was having dinner with our friends in a relaxed, non-rushed environment at last.  They live in Seattle on Lake Washington, and my previous visit there had stricken me deeply with a sense of “I’d love to have this sort of neighborhood setup, and even better to be around these people.”  That was one of the reasons I’d hoped we could all (as a family) visit them at home, but unfortunately it hasn’t worked out.  But this evening got Tacco and I thinking and talking about the difference between moving someplace that we like, but don’t know anyone, versus moving someplace where we at least have a foothold and some friends/family we know we want to be around and have our kids be around.  It’s a great conversation to have, and one we will revisit many times I think before we settle.

Amazing to be in a position to have this sort of choice on where ultimately to live and raise your family, but the sheer range of choice makes it almost paralyzing.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to them for now as they head to Glacier, and we spend a day with another set of friends (Park City friends this time) who happened to be in town, spending time at their cabin on Hebgen Lake, just outside of West Yellowstone.  Boat time!