Who's behind?

Mine.

One of my favorite quotes from Toy Story 2 :) and an appropriate quote for my blogging lately.  Not only have I let go some of my deep, thoughtful ponderings, I have also not finished my 'journaling' of our Yellowstone trip.  It already feels like a lifetime ago, even though we keep showing our Manimal video to everyone.  I'll show it to you someday if you're lucky. 

On the Saturday of our trip we took a day trip to Cody, Wyoming.  John has fond memories of visiting there when he was a kid and it's all due to the visit to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.  There are like a thousand and 1 guns of every make and model as well as some cool art work, amazing exhibit on Yellowstone, artifacts from Buffalo Bills Wild West Show (including Annie Oakley's size negative 1 dresses), and some other areas we didn't even make it too.

But, I jump ahead of myself.  The ride there started fine, with a stop here and there for the buffalo to show us who's boss.  We stopped at another area to see our first bear with cub (yes, I freaked out that we were out of the car, and in hindsight realize that we were pretty far away), then drove through country I cannot find words to describe.  Seriously so amazing and yet my stomach was in my throat looking over the cliffs and imagining the 15 foot walls of snow on the other side of the road falling and pushing us right over the edge.  Gorgeous, really, in a breath taking way.  Then we found ourselves looking at mountains with pinnacles and strange formations.

We were also winding our way through all of this.  When Katie Anne said her stomach hurt, I figured she was just hungry, being lunch time and all.  Wrong.  Really wrong.  Stinky, pukey, grossly wrong.  We got everyone out of the car, cleaned everything up the best we could, were thankful for my over-prep of the van and the extra grocery bags and wipes stashed in the glove box, and got on our way.  SO thankful for Walmart!  Katie Anne has a new outfit.  And a stroller.  I wasn't about to go to a museum for 5 hours without a stroller.  Plus, for $15 we could call it a souveneir!

We ate lunch in the van (didn't stink with the windows open) and headed to the museum.  We are now card holding members because it not only saved us a whole dollar, but we get 10% off at the gift shop.  Nice.  We stayed together for a while but eventually when the female portion of our group lost interest in the guns, we split up.  Only thing is, we didn't have cell service!  We did fine but when we were done, we were done, and could not find the boys anywhere.  Just when I was beginning to fume and mutter and wish I had set up a meeting point like I would have done if I were not so cell dependent, we found each other. 

We had dinner at Dairy Queen, one of our few out to eats.  I had read about a wild shoot out at a local hotel, held every night so we raced over there.  I thought, if they do this every night it's gotta be good.  Not.  SO LAME!  Then Katie Anne had to go potty in the middle and of course the first door I opened was a bar.  At least we got a good laugh out of the whole thing.  If we ever tell you that something is as good as the Cody Shootout, you know it's lame. 

We made it home with only a little driving in the dark.  We broke our 'no tv while driving in Yellowstone' rule and we all had a nice, clean, ride home.