Family Visit

Well, my Mom, Dad and little sister Alyssa, along with my one friend Rachel came out to visit Brad and I in Salt Lake City. I don't know if they would consider it a vacation, because there wasn't much relaxing. They got in late Saturday night, and were up and out the door Sunday morning seeing the sights. We went to Solitude Ski Resort, and rode the chair lift up to the top and walked around and enjoyed the view. I can't believe how rocky it was. The resort looks total different with snow on it. While we were at Solitude we saw a moose just hanging out in the shade. After the chair lift ride, we went to see the Morman Temple down town, then we went shopping for SLC souvenirs, and then we visited the U, and hiked up one of the hills to see a great view to the U and the whole Salt Lake valley. Then we just hung out at our pool and hot tub (this their only time to enjoy their vacation). Monday wasn't any different we went to Park City to the Olympic Park, where we say ski jumpers, and bob sledder, and then we shopped along the Main Street of Park City, and had lunch and bought fudge, and chocolates for the week from the candy store (my favorite). After that we went to pick up the motor home we rented for the week to make our travels to Yellowstone National Park more enjoyable. That night packed it all up with our stuff, and food and were off to Yellowstone. We drove for several hours that night, until we were in the middle of Idaho, and pulled off on the side of the road surrounded by corn fields and slept for the night (about 5 hours). Then we woke up and drove through Grand Teton National park to Yellowstone. At the Grand Tetons we stopped had breakfast at a rest stop and took some pictures. I really like the looks of the Grand Teton mountain range. While we were driving through the park and taking pictures we saw a baby bear on the side of the road. Then we entered into Yellowstone National Park. The park is huge, and we tried to see as much of it we could. We saw all the main features and a lot of wild life (we couldn't believe all the animals we saw). The first day in Yellowstone (Tuesday) we saw all different types of hot springs. Along one of our walking paths around the hot spring a bison was grazing, we had to wait for it to move to get around it...it was kind of scary. We drove through the park stoping and taking pictures at look out point and at the various waterfalls, and to admire the wildlife in the park. We saw the upper and lower falls, and went to Artist Point and Inspiration Point which was beatuiful...with the yellow rock canyon, with the waterfalls right in the middle, what a sight. After all that we were beat and decided to go shopping for souvenirs and food to cook for dinner. We went to our campsite, parked the motor home, and cooked dinner. My Dad and Brad inspired by the bison blocking our path had bison burgers for dinner (they enjoyed them). Then Wednesday was alot of the same. We saw more hot springs (which smell awful), some geyer and we drove out of the park up to Montana to see what that state was like. We did go on a 5 mile hike and it was beatiful and we saw more wildlife. At a stop in the park by some hot springs were a ton of elk just walking around and sitting in the shade. We ate, shopped and then went to our campsite and crashed after the long hike and busy day. When we woke up on Thursday we had a bison grazing right outside our motor home door. We were trapped. He didn't stay very long but it was really cool. You don't have stuff like that happen everyday. Thursday was the big day in Yellowstone because we went to see Old Faithful. We visited more gysers and hot springs on our way to Old Faithful, we also took a wrong turn (on the two rodes in Yellowstone) and ended up in Montana again. But we finally got to Old Faithful. We got there about 5 minutes before it was about to go off, and we waited and it was really cool when it went off. It was huge amount of water shouting up for the ground, and it was higher then I expected, and lasted for about 3 minutes. Then we had lunch right there at Old Faithful, did the last of our souvenir shopping in the park and then saw it go off again. This time though there were other gysers going off as well. So we saw three gysers going off at just about the same time, one out to our left in the distance, one in the back ground of Old Faithful and Old Faithful. It was cool. We drove out of the Yellowstone, and then to the Grand Tetons agains. We stop in the park to take some more pictures, bought souvenirs and had a nice dinner. We then just camped in the park for the night. In the morning we were on the road early to get to Salt Lake City, we did stop on the way back at promontory point (the golden spike) for a quick visit and to streach our legs. We got back to SLC at 7 pm, unloaded the RV, did some laundry, ate dinner and went to bed, because in the morning we were going to Moab,UT. We woke up and got packed up and drove 4 hours to Moab, and right to Canyonlands National Park. Here we saw the sights and did some little hikes. It was a perfit day because it was under 90 degrees, so we could enjoy the hikes and views without dying of heat. We stayed at the park until dark and then went to walk on the Main Street of Moab, shopped, and ate some dinner, and then crashed at our hotel. In the morning we woke up and went to Arches National Park. We went right to the Delicate Arch to do that 2 mile hike before it go to hot, but it was still 100 plus degrees by 10 am, so it was a very long hot hike, but seeing the Arch was well worth it. We hung around the Arch a little while tried to cool down and hiked back. It was another long hot hike. We then saw some more arches and ate lunch and headed back to Salt Lake City. On Monday after having a great week in Yellowstone and a wonderful time in Moab, my family got to sit by the pool the relax for the second time on their vacation. Even though the week was exhusting and long, I think they enjoyed it, I know Brad and I had a great time. In the end it was just nice seeing and hanging out with my family again. If you have a chance to go to Yellowstone I highly suggest it...there is not place like it.