Soda Springs and Yellowstone

The theme for the month seems to be all about working out of town, so once again I was off to Soda Springs ID.  You may be asking yourself where is that???  Go 3 hours north of Salt Lake City and about 30 miles from the border with WY and there you go...smack dab in the middle of nowhere.  This town was an important town during the early settlement of America and is on the Oregon Trail, but nowadays it is a phosphate mining town.

This time I elected to drive instead of fly and got to bring the family with.  I was great to be able to see them at the end of the day and have dinner every night with them.  We stayed at the Enders Hotel and Museum...I guess that's a two for one.  The hotel is early 1900's and a historic icon for the area and probably most importantly, it is the only hotel in town that reviewers online did not say had bedbugs.  Of course with such an old building the rooms are very small, but we made due putting the pack and play half in the closet and covering the other half like you would a bird cage at night.

For some reason James loves phones and if he sees one he will moan and groan till he gets to hold it.  We will have to work on the whining since I usually loose my patience in about 3 seconds when there is whining involved.  My way or the highway is my parenting style.

Soda Springs was named  for the spring right out of town that has super pure water and it is carbonated.  They used to bottle it and send it all over the world.  Some people dink that high end carbonated water at restaurants for about $7/bottle....this was free and all you wanted.  Just add a little crystal light and it tasted great.  I never got how people can just drink plain carbonated water.

Another spring that was important to the settlers was Pioneer Spring.  I can never get enough crystal clear water flowing in a river.  This area was very scenic and a good place to spend a little time.

About 20 miles from the town is the town of Lava Hot Springs.  The hot springs are awesome there and range in temperature from the coolest being 103F and the hottest being 113F.  If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend stopping, James even had a good time.  I know kids are not supposed to get into hot tubs, but since the water was naturally hot, it can't be all bad right.

Another area of the hot springs.

The next day we headed out for home and on the way took a few days to check out Yellowstone.  We arrived on Saturday and it was sunny and warm...then it snowed 2" in 1hr....then sunny again.  Mountain weather at its best.

Bison in the field.  The baby bison are very fun to watch.  We saw one that could barely walk.

Here is Old faithful the day we arrived.  Brenda was changing James and missed the eruption, so we waited for another.

The colors in the geysers are amazing.

Then, before Old Faithful could erupt again, snow.

Tourists in the visitors center.  Notice the cowboy hat on backwards...Classic.

They could care less about the geyser, but loved to take pics of James....of course he was super cute so I understood.

The next day we checked out the other sites.

The family near the grand canyon of the Yellowstone.

Near the mud pots I notice a bison near the trail.  We were so interested in the mud pots we were about 10' from it before we noticed it.  Brenda did not appreciate it when I started grunting and making my bison noises.

Lots of steam out of the geysers when it is so cold outside.

Nice pool.

We had to go to Old Faithful again to see it erupt.  Always good to see.

He actually fell asleep after 1hr in the backpack.

Back at home it was time for some mothers day pictures.

We also went over to a friends house for dinner last night.  The weather was so nice and we actually got to eat outside.  James is a little clingy to Noelle, but she is so nice to him.

James is teething a bit and he loved to chew on this rock...it did not sound great when we heard his teeth grinding on rock, but he liked it so we let him do it.