The 5th of July my mom, brother, and stepdad and I set off on our week-long “vacation” to Yellowstone National Park. It wasn’t much of a vacation as it was a chore. We camped all the way there and back in our old pop up camper. The way up to Yellowstone was really exciting, we stopped at Mount Rushmore. We spent several hours at the site to walk around, really we were just there to see the sun set and for the monument to be lit up. The next morning we were up bright and early and back on the road! As we got closer and closer, my cell phone started losing cell service. I was mortified! I wasn’t going to be able to text whatever boy I was obsessed with at the time to tell him how lame my trip was.
We get to Yellowstone and the nightmare continues. The first day we were in the park we came to the harsh realization that the only road was under construction, well one lane of it at least. Which meant there were stopping points through the park where we had to wait for a car to guide us through, the waiting varied from 10 minutes to almost an hour. So, we spend our time riding in a car to get to this great outdoor space, but are stuck in the car for the majority of the time. Every time we were outside of Yellowstone in the vicinity of civilization I would dive for my phone hoping I would get those texts I had been waiting for.
I will say that there were fun moments from this trip. Like the horseback riding that verified my hatred of horses. My horse was deemed un-ridable by a horse expert, me. It would not move even though it felt as I was beating the horse with my heels. The beautiful rolling hills were the only thing that made riding that stubborn horse worth it.
Another bright side of the trip was going to the grizzly bear sanctuary. Being in Yellowstone I was sad that we never saw any bears, which makes me glad that we went and saw some awesome bears. But camping, ugh. By the end of the trip we all had our set chores to set up and tear down that camper. We were like a well-oiled machine that had setting up the camper down in 10 minutes flat. That was the last time I ever camped for more than a night.