I think our family has been to dozens of national parks, but “Yellowstone” was only a myth to us until we drove in from Cody on this cool June morning. Strangely enough, I really knew nothing about the place before our visit besides the existence of “Old Faithful.” We planned to spend two days, knowing that that would not be enough, but also mindful that the grandparents wouldn’t be happy if we never made it to our next stop.

On the first day, our essential goal was to drive from our hotel outside the park on the east side to our hotel outside the park on the west side. (Hotels outside the park are outrageously expensive; inside the park they are completely booked and obscenely expensive.) I figured we would see some good things on the way, and then on our second day we would visit what we missed.

We started at the entrance and paid Uncle Sam his $30 entrance fee.  

We had previously passed by a moose visible from the highway, but we didn’t stop (not knowing that we would not see another one). We did stop when we saw the bighorn sheep monitoring the traffic.

I did take pictures of the sheep themselves, but since you can find those easily on the internet, I decided to share one showing how close our family was to these creatures who have curved horns but who are not ibex.

Then we went to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It is really nothing like the Arizona one, but it certainly has a beauty of its own.

It is beautiful, but despite the isolated appearance above, you’re actually dodging hundreds of tourists all trying to take the same photo.

I wasn’t sure if you’d like the photo with the kids or without the kids better, so you get both.

As we continued, we saw both snow and hot springs. The kids in the above photo were wearing jackets, indicating that it must have been chilly. But we spent a good part of the rest of the day walking through thermal features. First, the snow photo:

And then a thermal feature:

And here we have two hot items in one photo:

That’s a thermal feature behind my wife, if you couldn’t recognize it. And that photo is what is known elsewhere as a “selfie.” I’ve never had much luck pointing my Nikon at me, but now that I have a phone, I thought I would give it a try. Before long, I suppose I’ll be blasting social media with selfies of me everywhere doing everything. That’s what everyone cares about, right?

I took lots and lots of pictures of cool thermal features. This is the last one I’ll show you, until tomorrow.

By the way, I’m not exactly sure who “you” are. I ran into an old student last week. We hadn’t seen each other or been in touch in more than 10 years. She told me she was reading these posts about our family vacation. I had no idea. I assume my mom is reading along, but she hasn’t mentioned it, so I’m not really sure. The only other person I know of is Roberta. So the “you” here may indeed be a singular “you.”

Here’s one last photo for the day, taken on an extended walk we did around the Norris Geyser Basin. We almost didn’t get in here because the entrance had a roadblock. But a minute after we were forced to keep driving past it, I did a U-turn to go back. At just the moment we returned, the park ranger was removing the barricade. Another ranger later told us that they block the entrance when parking fills up because they don’t have a parking lot monitor because Congress cut their funding. I’m supposed to write my congressman. OK. Seems like the $30 fee x 4.2 million annual visitors (/ people per car) could pay for a parking attendant for a very splendid region full of geysers. Apparently not.

And one more, because I said this area was beautiful, but I didn’t show you very much.

Tomorrow we’ll head to Old Faithful, but as you’ll see, I enjoyed the other nearby attractions much more.

When we left Kelli’s parents, we began a long two-day drive west toward Yellowstone. Along the way we saw a couple of friends and some beautiful scenery. Our first stop was in Iowa to see a college roommate of Kelli’s. They were close in college but had not seen each other since then. They had a great time catching up!Then it was back in the car for more driving. Here’s a glimpse inside…

As we neared South Dakota, Mark got in touch with our friend Lauren and she drove up from her home to meet us for dinner at Cracker Barrel in Sioux Falls. Lauren recently graduated from TMU and she was with us in Turkey and Greece earlier this year. And she is off to study at JUC next month!

Lauren proposed we spend the rest of the evening at Falls Park. That was a great suggestion!

On the next day we drove through South Dakota and a big rainstorm. We drove right past the exit for Mount Rushmore (but we’ve been there before) in an effort to get to our hotel before it was too late. As we came closer to Yellowstone, we passed through some beautiful Wyoming scenery.

Kelli liked our hotel where we spent the night in Cody, Wyoming. Here’s a photo of the lobby.

We covered 1,200 miles in these two days and were ready to visit Yellowstone the next day for the first time!

Our time in Rockford was the centerpiece of the trip, and we spent more time here than anywhere else (though I alone disappeared for a few days, which I will explain in the next post). There were lots of adventures, many of which were not photographed (by Kelli or me) and so are largely ignored here.

I mentioned last time that we visited Kelli’s aunt on the way to Rockford, but I didn’t share a picture.

The next day Kelli’s brother drove down from Minnesota and before the weekend was out, we all went to Culver’s, a regular favorite for us when we come to town.

On Sunday morning, Bethany and Grandpa helped to lead worship in church. That was a first time for Bethany and she did great!

The kids went on quite a few fishing trips with Grandpa, and they also enjoyed walking the dog with him.

They threw a graduation party for the older boys.

Everyone was happy when Kelli’s sister drove over from Iowa for a visit.

Here we are all gathered around the dinner table.

And I’ll close with this shot that Kelli took of Jonathan playing with his Legos.

Everyone had a great week!

We arrived with our friends, the Clutterhams, at the Ark Encounter at about noon. This full-size replica of Noah’s Ark was only built last year, so it was a first time for everyone. We started off with some family photos with the ark in the background.

You can’t really appreciate the size, though, until you are up close. Then you realize just how enormous this boat was.

The impressive entrance ramp on the outside is just for visual display, as the actual entrance is through the base at one end (and the exit is through the gift shop at the other end).

Inside, the ark is divided into three levels, just as Noah’s was. Each level is essentially a museum focused on a different aspect of the ark/flood account. It was on the first level, I believe, where they have lots and lots of animal reconstructions, and they didn’t choose to recreate your standard fox and ostrich, but they had some rather exotic creatures that they think existed on the ark (and that would be more interesting to visitors than a fox and ostrich).

There were lots of explanatory displays that Mark noted answered a lot of his questions. I agree that they did a good job with this, though it’s difficult to retain it all as you move through so many displays. We purchased one book that seems like it contains a good bit of the technological aspects of the ark that were mentioned in the displays.

It is not easy to get a sense for the ark’s internal construction when you are inside, and I think the photo below is about the best I could do. The large beams on the left are in the center of the ark.

Other exhibits featured members of Noah’s family, with descriptions of how they may have occupied their time. There was some imagination involved in some of these displays, and I’m ambivalent about how I feel about that. On the positive side, they were right to emphasize that Noah’s family was smart, industrious, and likely had different interests.

Some areas of the ark demonstrated how foodstuffs may have been stored and how the animals would have been fed. It would have been quite a job to feed them all without some sorts of systems. The displays suggested some possibilities.

There are some real animals on the ark, but they are held in the petting zoo. The kids enjoyed touching the donkeys and goats.

After some time in the gift store and then a goodbye to the Clutterhams, we headed toward the hotel for the night. For our one dinner in Kentucky, we appropriately ate out at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

When we got in touch with some old friends who had moved to St. Louis, they suggested we take our families to the City Museum of St. Louis. The museum website suggested we were in for something different, but we didn’t realize just how different.

The first thing to recognize is that this is not a “museum” in the way we normally think of museums. Kelli’s description is probably the best I’ve heard: it’s like an industrial playground. It’s “industrial” in its design and materials.

One thing that kept astonishing me throughout our visit is how such a place can exist in such a litigious society. Ultimately I concluded that the place must just be completely safe, as I let my 6-year-old go places I dared not.

Yes, that’s Jonathan, about three (or four) stories off the ground, climbing through some rod iron “tunnel.” It was a veritable maze, outdoors, with passages running hither and thither. Here’s a broader view of part of it.

There was also indoor areas (about four floors worth), with more tunnels, passageways, and caves. Some of it reminded me of the Bar Kochba tunnels, for those of you who have enjoyed crawling through those in the Shephelah.

A friend advised me to bring kneepads, and they came in handy. There were several slides, including a three-story chute that ended right near the museum entrance.

The more “famous” one is the ten-story indoor slide, which this photo does not do justice to.

Not everything was for the courageous, though I didn’t take as many photos of those sorts of things.

There were some more normal museum-type displays, such as this one with insects, but there were a number of bizarre collections that I was probably too stunned at to take a picture of.

In all, we had a great visit with our friends, and we were glad too that they continued to travel with us that evening and the next day as we headed toward Kentucky.

When we were living in Texas, we heard several recommendations for the Sight and Sound Theater in Branson, Missouri. And so on one of our trips, we made reservations for the Joseph show. It was fantastic! Not only was it a first-rate production, they did very well in terms of faithful biblical interpretation. (And we watched the video of it a few months back, and I maintain my conclusion on that.) So early on we decided that we would try to visit Branson on this trip as well.

This year the production is “Moses.” That certainly makes for a good follow-up from “Joseph.” Some of our Israel/Dallas friends recently moved to the Branson area and we made plans to go to the show and dinner together.

Photos are not allowed in the performance, so I don’t have anything to show you besides this halftime shot. But I can say that this show was also excellent, though as most “Moses” productions do, they essentially end it at the Red Sea. And God didn’t really write a “Moses” story in the same way that he wrote a “Joseph” story, so I think the script writers had a greater challenge. But we really enjoyed the extensive cast, the larger-than-life sets, and the live animals that brushed by you as they walked down the aisle.

As much as the show, we enjoyed our time with the Dunnings. Jonathan hit it right off with Zach, as you can see from their boisterous game of “rock, paper, scissors.” The girls got along well too. For dinner, we made our long-awaited return to Cracker Barrel. (At least, it was long-awaited for some in our family, and I actually enjoyed the food this time.) The fellowship was great, both during the meal and afterwards in the rocking chairs on the porch.

Craig, Colleen, and Bethany at Cracker Barrel

The photo above captures, in my view, the quintessential personalities of Craig and Colleen. This is pretty much  who they are. It was so great to be back with them. Since Craig and I met in the Tel Aviv airport in the summer of 1990, we have pretty much lived in the same country or state until our departure from Texas. This pattern suggests to me that he should be moving soon to California.

A game of checkers at Cracker Barrel