Yellowstone

Earlier this year Ryan and I were invited by this amazing couple (Travis and Katrina) to come stay at their lodge in West Yellowstone this spring/summer. I have never been to Yellowstone so I immediately jumped at the opportunity. We have been counting down the days to go. I have been so anxious awaiting an encounter with a bear- yes I was hoping to run into a bear.

A friendly one though- kinda like pooh bear- a cuddly one!

We left early afternoon on Friday with no real agenda but to get there. It was so nice to stop when we wanted, drive however long we wanted and have no deadlines. Ryan got me an iphone for Mothers Day and I was very happy to have that on the road. HOWEVER I really wanted to rent a movie but needed to be connected to wifi to download anything so I made Ryan drive around for close to an hour in Pocatello looking for a place with wifi-- and we never did find a place. Its okay though. we played car games, sang really loud, made fun of each other and pigged out on pepsi and dr. pepper.

We decided to stop at Bear World- literally at the last second.

Ryan cut off 2 cars in order to not miss the turn off.

I was so overly excited I cant explain myself.

I'm in love with animals and I couldn't wait to see a bear...

Remember- I was determined to hug one.

(Check out this white elk!)

This little fella came right up to our car. I tried to open the door knowing he would leap into my loving arms and give me a nice wet kiss, but- Ryan locked the door and pulled my hair until I promised I wouldn't get out.

And we continued on our journey. We were following the gps on my phone until we lost all service about 10 miles away from West Yellowstone so we got a bit lost but finally found our destination. As soon as we pulled in I was in aww... This place is incredible. Seriously you all have to promise me to plan a trip to Yellowstone and stay at The Hibernation Station! We checked in and were escorted to our cabin.

We wondered around town that night (in pouring rain) and ate at a yummy barbecue restaurant. We ended the night by chilling in their hot tub and finally crashing in the amazingly comfortable bed. I haven't slept that hard in months.

Ryan doesn't believe in sleeping in- esp. on vacations (drives me nuts) so he woke me up bright and early... and when I say early, I mean 7:15 am!!!! Are you freakin kidding me.

After a few choice words with my sweet hubby we went to a Bear and Wolf sanctuary. Now this was amazing. We got there just in time to watch both the bears and the wolfs get fed.

The bears are named Sam and Illie.

and Ryans favorite animal- The Wolf.

After our awesome adventure we headed up to Yellowstone National Park! It was amazing. We were in the park a total of 6.5 hours. We ate lunch, saw Old Faithful, stoped at approx. 4 gift shops, saw one car accident (a car ran into a tree) took a million pictures of trees, took a hand full of pictures of buffalo, saw 6 wolfs- 1 black one, saw a few cow elk and one bull elk. It didn't rain, The weather was nice, pretty much drove the whole way with the windows down, listened to lots of music and smelled lots of hot pots :(

We had a great time.

We of course created our MRW in Yellowstone.

We left the park and headed back to our cabin. Katrina and Travis invited us to go horseback riding at their property. We couldn't say YES fast enough.

Ryan and I would love to own horses someday. We are both city people don't know the slightest thing about country living but its still a dream.

This was my horse = Fancy

And this was Ryans = Mistletoe

We jumped on and headed up the mountain. I cant begin to explain how amazing this ride was. The views were amazing. We loved getting to know Travis and Katrina, we watched out for that cuddly bear, galloped, ran and trekked it through snow. We got pretty high up before we turned back because the snow was getting to deep and the mud to muddy. Although I definitely don't have a horse riding body- seriously my butt is beat up and I hit my knee on a tree which left it black and blue- we loved every second of it. It was definitely the highlight of our already amazing vacation.

We seriously cant thank The Hibernation Station, Katrina and Travis enough for their amazing gift. We are so lucky to have them as new friends and cant wait to go back- seriously: we are already planning our next trip out there.

After a yummy dinner we headed back to our room and enjoyed our last night in paradise.

Ryan let me sleep in until 9am and then we headed back home.

Against our will.

I wish I could move there.

...someday...