Family Visit and Jess's birthday..and the MOOOOOSE

We LOVE Risk...yes we're nerds. Amanda whipped our trash...this time.

This past couple of weeks has mostly consisted of preparing for the much anticipated arrival of Michael’s family (and playing risk) minus Nancy and Nathan. Unfortunately they couldn’t make it up which totally stinks. But such is life. They’ll have to come visit us for sure once we graduate and move somewhere hopefully with mountains and cooler weather. We, the attending parties of the Wilson family, were joined by Kurt and Mitzi Cox. They are our close family friends that moved to Orem, Utah from Denton several years ago. It has been a staple to visit them whenever we are in the great white north. This time they decided to join us for a few days on their way back from Seattle. 

Saturday consisted of us working and getting off super early because it was super slow. We then met up with Mike’s family and gave them a tour of the Mammoth Hot Springs area including the hot spring terraces and the hoodoos. That night once everyone was in town we went to dinner at the Ironhorse Bar and Grill. Despite the insanity that took place the food was amazing and we all had a great time. We were joined that night by Tommy and Patsy Smith, our friends from Sopchoppee, Florida (yes, that’s a real town). After dinner we went back and crashed pretty hard.

 

Sunday was much like a regular old Sunday, we went to church and then enjoyed our regular Sunday drive in and around Yellowstone. The talks at church were really good as well as the lessons that were presented in the various classes. The spirit was definitely in attendance on Sunday. After church we got ready for our drive that we had ahead of us and we all piled into Patti and Sharon’s rental car that wasn’t big enough…but we squeezed in anyway. All 7 of us were crammed in and we drove to Red Lodge, Montana on the Bear Tooth Highway. The road passed the 12,000 foot mark in elevation and the scenery was beautiful. The entire drive was amazing including the waterfalls and the blonde colored black bear we saw just off the side of the road. We didn’t get back to Gardiner until after 11:00 but it was a great day with some amazing scenery. It was totally worth it. Kurt was hilarious cracking jokes left and right while his sweet wife constantly said, “Kurt!! Not on Sunday!” I have since adopted this phrase but I use it every day. Kurt was telling a story and said the word “underwear” and Mitzi promptly said (everyone with me now) “Kurt!! Not on Sunday!” She was joking, of course. But she has just the right voice for one to wonder if she really is a little embarrassed by Kurt’s jokes. Mike said the word fart and she asked me, “Jess are you so embarrassed right now?” I explained that of course I was because it was Sunday after all. Later Mike showed him the app called Google Sky Map (pretty cool). Kurt was mesmerized and pointed the phone down and said “Hey! There’s Uranus down there on the floor!”  The funniest part was his look after he said the sentence, realizing what he just said. Those two are some of my favorite people. 

Patti took this shot...but I thought it was pretty cool.

 

 

Monday we drove to Bozeman to drop our car off to get fixed. Here is the story, if you didn’t read about how it got damaged. Kurt and Mitzi joined us in a city named West Yellowstone. This city consists of a bunch of shops about Yellowstone while not actually being in Yellowstone. We hung around town for a while and said our goodbyes to Kurt and Mitzi. We were then off to West thumb Geyser. Fishing cone was pretty cool and so was black pool. We then went to Old Faithful to see some geysers. It was pretty fun watching Old Faithful go off and even more fun watching Sharon watch it go off. I could tell she was totally in awe (but who wouldn’t be) of the geyser and the height of the gushing water. 

 

Tuesday was pretty eventless for us because we worked until 6:00 while they went on the tour called Yellowstone in a day and saw FOUR stinkin bear. J We did have dinner with the fam and Kirby and Allison at the Cowboy Café…the one with the cowboy out front. That was some good barbeque! Brisket sammich was delicious. We tried to go animal watching as we drove around Lamar Valley, but didn’t see much…except bison…lots of bison. 

Wednesday we had to drive to Bozeman to get the car and drop off Robin at the airport so that took most of the day. We did have dinner at the Mammoth dining room that was pretty good and they sang happy birthday to me.

Thursday was the best day EVER!! After we left to go to the lake we were driving along minding our own business when on the side of the road was a GRIZZLY! The first one I’ve seen here in Yellowstone. It was super cute just digging for food in a log. Every time I’ve seen a bear I’ve, forgotten my camera, got a blurry picture or was being hunted by a bear I trying to take a picture of, but Thursday was the day I finally got a good shot of a bear. I knew it was gonna be a good day. We decided to go to my favorite place, Artists’ Point and it was just as breathtaking as it was the first time I saw it.  We got to the lake and took a Scenic Cruse around the lake and got some cool history of the lake and some amazing views. On our way to Tower Fall we got caught in a bison jam (spread it on your bread…that one’s for you Robin). Apparently it’s rut so the males are pretty aggressive. We didn’t see any of them fighting but they were huffing and puffing while standing in the middle of the road. We FINALLY got to Tower Fall and it was super pretty (and crowded). Our next destination was to Roosevelt to ride on a horse drawn covered wagon to eat some yummy steak. Sharon (sneaky girl) told the man that was singing cowboy songs to us that it was my birthday without my knowledge. He sang me a personalized birthday song that we didn’t record…shoot…that was pretty funny in front of 200 strangers. When we got back to the car, we decided to drive up to petrified tree to see if there were any animals up there. Guess what we saw??? YUP a MOOOOOSE!! It was love at first sight. He was so beautiful! My first moose, ON MY BIRTHDAY! I felt so blessed. When we got back, I thought “man this was a good day”…Until my favorite girls yelled from outside, “hey birthday bear, come outside”. I walk outside and there they were with a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles on top with candles formed into a “J” lit singing me happy birthday. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. 

I took this shot. :)
This is the first Grizzly I've seen here. 

 

What Truman Everts ate while being stranded for 37 days...looks tasty...

 

My birthday Mooose!

 

Hadesroaring Creek and fun with Bears: volume 7

The previous day to the current day(7/15/12)…..

Well, here it is. We went on our backpacking trip and it was adventurous to say the least. The hike out wasn’t a huge deal except that it was probably close to 90 degrees and the mosquitos and horse flies were awful (I still have big nasty red spots from the flies on my arms). We both got pretty whipped on the hike out so that wasn’t fun but we toughed it out and made it. 4.7 miles from our car to the camp site. One of the only negatives about living up here is that it’s so dry its really easy to get dehydrated even if you think you’re drinking enough water you totally aren’t. That’s what happened to me once we got to camp. 

Once we actually made it to our camp we started to set everything up like our tent and the ever essential hammocks. We filtered some water out of the river and went to relax in our hammocks. As I finished tying mine to the trees we had chosen and began to sit in it the rope stretched and what was 2 ½ feet off the ground became 4 inches off the ground. Then it happened, snap, the stupid rope broke and I landed right smack on the point of a rock that was sticking out of the ground, it hurt. We then decided it was time to eat some dinner so we went to our designated dining facility, a rock underneath some trees about 115 yards away from our tent (I stepped it off just for giggles). Our culinary masterpiece consisted of greasy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a banana. Jess forced herself to eat all of hers and I only had a couple bites of mine. 

By this time it had begun to cool off considerably so I went and laid in our tent while Jess went back to her hammock with its ever so reliable mosquito net. A side effect of dehydration is lack of appetite while yet another is a pounding headache. I was experiencing both of these at this time. I made it my personal goal to drink as much water as I could but not to overdo it. I ended up drinking around 3 liters of water that night. After a while Jess came and joined me in the tent and we read our scriptures on my phone and we decided to see if we could stay up and watch some of the stars since it would be a perfect night for it. Of course Jess fell right asleep while I stayed awake for a large majority of the night, it was awful. In the little amount of sleep I got I kept having dreams of female animals, Elk, Bison, Grizzly Bears and the absolute worse, a Mountain Lion kept peeking into our tent just to look at us. I have no idea why it completely freaked me out but it did and I didn’t sleep…..this made for a wonderful day Tuesday. 

Sunday night while Jess was typing up our previous blog post I was busy packing our bags and organizing our stuff. In a kind of bonehead move I didn’t really think about packing the bags too efficiently, that was a bad idea. On the hike out Jess’s pack was packed rather unevenly and it produced some sweet bruises on her hips and shoulders. So Tuesday morning I completely changed the way her bag was packed and it made a huge difference to her. So we ate our lovely breakfast and packed up our camp and hit the trail. 

We made really good progress doing about 2 miles in somewhere around 40 minutes. We took about a 15 minute break then got back up and hit the trail. After about 200 yards I stopped in the middle of the trail and asked Jess “what is that in the trail?” she responds “what is it a whistle pig?” (a whistle pig is a small ground squirrel that is all over the place here). Of course it wasn’t and I pointed to a specific area on the trail and said “no, THAT!” she responds “is that a bear?!” Sure enough it was a Black bear that was red in color (they call them cinnamon black bears). At this point the bear was about 100 yards away and it totally knew we were there and was watching us very intently. We started yelling at the bear so we moved off the trail and pushed our way up the ridgeline to our left. Once we got to the top of the ridge the bear was closer than it was before, maybe 60 yards now and it was headed our way. Luckily we had our bear spray and advanced brains on our sides. We were at the top of the ridge and by means beyond our own the bear decided we weren’t fit to eat. So we pushed on over the ridge and made our way back to the trailhead. 

On the hike up I was looking ahead on the trail and step on an unsteady rock and twisted my ankle, hooray. I fought through and we eventually made it back to the trailhead. Out by our campsite some Park Rangers were working on a wood bridge that crossed the Hellroaring Creek. They apparently finished the work on the bridge after we passed them Tuesday morning and headed back to the trailhead as well. They had a team of horses and mules to carry the equipment and supplies out. The stock team passed us as we finished our climb and were ½ a mile from the parking lot. No big deal right…until we got to the parking lot. Apparently one of the mules got spooked and we don’t know if it kicked or just flat out ran into our car but either way our passenger side mirror got broke and the passenger side door has a couple small dents in it at the bottom. Luckily the park service said they would pay for repairs. It’s not a huge deal but it was just one more thing to add to the list. 

As we got loaded up and headed back to the main road to go back to Mammoth we saw people standing in the road and sitting on the roadside having a picnic, this is not normal. As we later found out there was traffic over 2 miles long backed up in both directions because someone drove a truck pulling a horse trailer into a ditch…great. From what we saw all the horses looked fine. After that last obstacle we finally made it back to Mammoth and showered and napped. It was glorious. 

Other than our adventures from Monday and Tuesday not a whole lot happened other than hanging out with some of our friends and eating some delicious food. Life is good up here in Yellowstone and despite all the negatives from our camping trip in hindsight it was a blast and made for a great story that we’ll be able to tell for years to come. Hope you enjoyed reading and good luck with your stuff and things.

Chester the Chipmunk wanted us to tell you guys hi. (Jess finally got a shot of a REAL chipmunk)

July Birthday Shout out!

This week July 4-8

We are no longer affiliated with Dep or LA Looks…it’s a long story that involves a bear, a piece of gum and a paper clip. I don’t wanna get into it; just know….we won. For the Fourth of July we had to work. Stinky, I Know…but it wasn’t too bad. It was super slow...like read 6 chapters in my book slow and everyone at work was in a good mood. We’re in Mammoth and they do a “parade” every Fourth which we didn’t go to because we were getting ready to go to work. The parade started at  8:00am. Only big city parades can get away with doing it that early in the morning. These people are on vacation and I’m pretty sure most of them don’t get up that early. Especially if the parade consisted of a grand total of 10 people walking around the hotel and cabins and then ending up in front of the hotel and singing (off key) the Star Spangled Banner. Mike said they used to have an awesome parade where they would bring the horses out and a ranger would be in it and everything…had they told me I would have gladly put something together. People were calling in days before the 4^th of July trying to get in the park, which Mike and I never understood because the park doesn’t do anything for the 4^th…but to each their own. Despite the lame parade, we had a great 4^th. We when to the Gilbert’s and ate yummy food and then played a mean game of badminton…emphasis of the BAD. David Gilbert thought he’d be funny and said, “The first person to hit me with the birdie gets the first piece of pie.” 10 minutes later he was regretting that statement when his daughter (who was on his team) whet to serve the birdie and hit him WACK on the back of the head. I earned the second piece when I was serving and hit Sharon Gilbert in the stomach (she was on my team too). Lori Doss rocked it out that day. Pretty sure we won because of her. We weren’t supposed to be keeping score…but I’m 99% positive our team won. Happy late 4^th to everyone.

We don’t mind our jobs but honestly, we didn’t come here to work. So working 11 hour shifts isn’t our favorite thing to do in Yellowstone. I almost…ok I did, had a few hours of self-pity and homesickness. We get home at 6:00pm and we’re too pooped to go out and do anything.  Luckily, we have an awesome boss, Lori. She understands and is willing to work with us on the schedule. I find it interesting that the more money one earns working for Xanterra, the more they take out of your paycheck for rent and such. We just as soon work 20 hours a week and still get the same benefits that all the other employees are getting working 40 hours. While they're working, we’ll be hiking out in this beautiful country. Sounds fair, right?

We went out for Angel’s birthday Saturday night. He’s from Bulgaria and is known for saying ool instead of owl and for being Bulgarian. His girlfriend, Bethany surprised him and had one of the cooks make him this amazing yellow cream cheese frosting with strawberries on top cake. It was gone in a matter of minutes. One of the girls bought a TON of glowsticks and we had a blast with them. Allison even did magic tricks for us. I can’t express how funny that was. Mike said he would describe it as, “the worst possible magic show on the face of the planet.” It was pretty awful, but I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. (Meaning not since the 4^th when Dave got WACKED in the head with the birdie)

 Also, this is a birthday shout out! Happy birthday to Nathan R. Mickle, Buster Rock Wilson, Jacob R. Chavez, Robin G. Wilson and Jess R. Wilson…yes I said it to myself. Notice we all have an “R” middle initials…except Robin….oh Robin, always gotta be different. AND some awesome Uncles: Rodney R. Chavez and Randy R. Garrison…  Also awesome July non-family members: Walker R. Wright, Alice R. Dutton, Carla R. Cullum, Greg R. Severn, Garrett R. Ferguson (same birthday, he’s a few hours older than I am), Sarah R. Bolton, Judy R. Gwilliam, Angel R. Andonov…and everyone else who has a birthday in July with a middle initial of R. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I’ve informed Mike that this is my birthday MONTH…meaning I get whatever I want for the WHOLE month. He just rolled his eyes because I think he feels like it’s always my birthday month. 

Mike also gave a talk today at church about the 12^th Article of Faith. Try making that interesting while not talk talking about politics. He did an amazing job, though. (as if there was any doubt) If you don’t know what the Articles of Faith are you can click here and read them. They’re the basic beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Tomorrow we’re going to Hellroaring Creek and we’ll hike about 15-20 miles over the next two days. My first backpacking trip…Wish us luck. 

Lastly, we saw a full on Double Rainbow. 
ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SKY!!!!

   

Jess' birthday and stuff!

 Howdy folks!

Welcome to the weekly installment of the Wandering Wilson’s Wanderings and such, brought to you by Dep and LA Looks, you’re always looking good with LA Looks. On this week’s installment we will discuss Pronghorn, Black Bears, Hoodoo’s, caves, Old Faithful and the Old Faithful Inn, and various other magnificence including waking up at 3……..am……you read that right, 3AM. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did……do…….are enjoying……havingness…..whatever.

                Jesssssssss misssssesssss Mr. Roy’s salsa, it’s not very good up here atall. 

                In beginning we went out to a lovely destinanation for those who wish to watch animals such as Bison bison (more commonly known as Bison), Pronghorn Antelope (who aren’t actually Antelope at all), Bears of various nature (Ursus arctos horribilis and Ursus americanus amongst others) and even the much loved Canis lupus. When we found a spot from which to observe the Pronghorn Antelope, our target for the night, we settled in to see how they would behave over the next few hours while we were watching. The group began with two females sitting in the grass and very quickly grew to six females and one male. After a few more minutes another male showed up (a few hundred yards away) and the original male began the chase to scare him off. They ran around for quite some time at a very high speed. Eventually the chase brought them close enough to us that we could hear them grunting and snorting at each other as the sprinted through the sage brush about 20 yards away. We stood there in awe as they darted across the road immediately in front of us. On our way home we decided to stop and see if we could see any bears at their usual spots. We stopped by the petrified tree and saw a black bear staring down two mule deer bucks. That was fun to watch.

                We’ll be right back after a word from our sponsor’s…..Use Dep if you want your hair to withstand hurricane force winds, DEP!

Alright and we’re back! There is a beautiful spot that we have gone on a hike through which we discussed in an earlier post, it is called the Hoodoos. The name is a complete misnomer because hoodoos are actually a formation carved by wind and rain whereas these hoodoos were most likely created by an earthquake and the greatness that is the freeze/thaw cycle. Basically it’s a huge field of massive tumbled boulders. It’s perfect for climbing around in and ‘sploring as Jess puts it. We went climbing around for a bit, I went bouldering and Jess took pictures. It was a blast. While we were climbing around we found a cave where some of the larger boulders fell together and created a pretty big hole. What else do we have to do but climb inside. It was pretty deep and significantly cooler than outside the cave. It didn’t really go anywhere that we could fit but at one point Jess kicked a rock and we heard it drop and bounce off other rocks for what sounded like a good 6 feet then it splashed in some water. It was very impressive. 

                This brings us to Sunday. As most of you that may be reading this know we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fortunately for us there happens to be a small congregation in Gardiner, Montana which is about an 8 minute drive from our dorm to the front door of the church. Compared to our church at home which was about 200 people every Sunday this branch is a consistent 25-30 people on a weekly basis. When we got here we requested that our records be sent up here so we could help out the branch in whatever way possible. Our records showed up on Sunday so we are now officially members of the Gardiner, Montana Branch in the Bozeman, Montana Stake. It’s kind of cool to be in such a small unit of the church. We pretty much know everyone and the Spirit is awesome. We’ve also met some really cool people who have welcomed us into their homes and shared some great times with us. Most recently we were introduced to “suicide badminton.” It is a very intensely humiliating game that we played last night for Family Home Evening. Jess and I were terrible. But it was a blast. 

                Now for another word from our sponsors, LA Looks!

                We’d like to thank our sponsors Dep and LA Looks for their generous support. Sunday night we got lucky and were able to book a room at the Old Faithful Inn for the night. This was Jess’s birthday present from me. 

We were also planning on waking up early to try and catch the Photo Safari from the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, on the opposite side of the lower loop…..it’s about an hour and a half away with no traffic. The Photo Safari leaves at 5:45 in the AM. Despite this early start we meandered around the Old Faithful Inn enjoying the fiddle playing and pianist before we set out to explore the Upper Geyser Basin as it is known. It truly is an amazing place with boiling water that is the deepest , purest blue you’ve ever seen pouring out of the ground sometimes at a rate of 100 gallons per hour from one spring. Sometimes the smells are a little overpowering but the views are worth it. As the sun set and it began to cool off the geysers and hot pools began to show some steam and when looking down the valley to the north of Old Faithful you could a series of steam clouds rising from the various geysers. It was truly amazing and a wondrous sight to behold. 

 

 

 

My trusty alarm unfortunately went off as planned, at 3:00am and we started the long trek to Lake Yellowstone Hotel. On the way we got a beautiful view of the moon setting and the sun rising over the mountains. We saw two coyotes run across the road just ahead of us and saw several Bison and Elk sleeping with spitting distance from the road (yes that is an appropriate measure of distance). We actually arrived at the hotel an hour early and found out there wasn’t enough room for the two of us to take the photo safari trip. So, with heads hanging down we made the long drive back to Mammoth Hot Springs. We made a few stops along the way to view the sunrise from a few opportune spots. Despite the early hour it was a lovely drive and I am grateful we did that trip. 

 

              

 That just about sums up our adventures over the past week. We hope everyone out there is safe and healthy and avoiding those crazy forest fires. Stay safe and use your brains, you have them for a reason!

Loves,

Michael and Jess!