It's Always Fun Until Natalie Gets Hurt

Now time to provide some background to our Yellowstone preparations. Ryan and his brothers love to do a very long hike called Fairy Falls. Since I've known Ryan, he tells stories about how pretty this hike is, and how you have to have the necessary endurance to survive the 10 mile hike. When we got our Gold's Gym memberships, if he was trying to find motivation to push himself harder, I would hear him saying things like "I need to get in better shape for Fairy Falls!" Part of me was excited about this hike, and the other part of me was slightly terrified that I wouldn't be able to handle it.

On Thursday, the day before we planned on hiking Fairy Falls, we started the morning with a few smaller hikes. Quick hikes to hot spots and mud pots. I came to really like the mud pots. Something about how they seemed thicker and had a harder boil than the normal water pots. On our way to the mud pots, we pulled over when we saw the international sign for "THERE'S AN ANIMAL," otherwise known as parked cars and lots of onlookers. When we got out, I had to ask someone what we were looking at. He told me there was a wolf pack that had taken down an elk and were eating it way off in the distance. A nice group of wolf trackers offered to let us look through their long-range scopes that they had focused on the kill. When I looked through, the first thing I saw was a huge, bloody ribcage splayed open, with two wolves picking at it. We sat and watched them for a bit. That was one of the coolest animal sightings I've had.

For our first mud pot adventure, I strapped Lilly into the backpack and stared up at a pretty big incline. I handled it just fine, talking with Ryan between heavy breathing. Secretly, I was pretty proud of myself for being able to make the whole hill without a break. The hike was pretty short; maybe 45 minutes. We had just come out at the end, when I turned to look behind me and stepped right into a hole in the sidewalk. Without knowing what hit me, I just fell onto my hands, snapping my ankle as I fell. It took me a minute to remember that I had Lilly on my back. All the boys ran over to make sure she was okay. When I fell, I felt my ankle snap. I knew I hadn't broken it, but oh boy was it hurtin'! It was definitely sprained. I managed to hobble my way to the car while Ryan filled a bag full of ice and helped me settle into the backseat. I propped my foot up on the center console for the rest of the trip. Ryan joked that I'd have to try harder if I wanted to get out of the Fairy Falls hike. 

In my mind, I was hoping that I was going to be okay for Fairy Falls. I would be bummed if I missed out on everything that Ryan had been telling me about. I decided to skip out on the rest of the hikes for the day. Despite enduring what felt like ankle contractions, we decided it was time for lunch at a little place that the family frequented on their previous trips. Just as we were crossing a bridge outside the little village, we saw pulled over cars and lots of people with ridiculously huge camera lenses. I just assumed it was more deer or something....until we saw that there were park rangers. Park rangers are always called to a bear sighting, just to make sure no one gets eaten. We had really been wanting to see a bear, and were really surprised when down on the banks of the river, a small grizzly was getting ready to cross. We raced to park the cars, and then everyone ran to take pictures while I had to stay in the car with Lilly. I was bummed, I won't lie. I can't ever remember seeing a bear in any of my Yellowstone trips.

Once everyone returned to the car, I was joking about how it was just my luck that I'd hurt myself right before the bear sighting. Right as I was saying that, I glanced out my window, and the grizzly was RIGHT THERE! He was making his way towards our car. Ignoring the screaming pain in my ankle, I plopped down my foot and grabbed the camera. I was maybe 5 feet from this guy. With all the commotion that was starting up around us, the bear started to get scared and turned to run into the forest. We followed it, where it ran straight into the picnic area of a small family who was having lunch. The mom grabbed her baby, put it in the carseat and ran back to her car while all of the others panicked. There was one guy who was hiking out of the trees when he realized he had walked up on a bear. He just froze. Luckily, the bear took off and left everyone alone. We all agreed that I should start complaining about not seeing wildlife more often, and then maybe a moose would appear outside my window. 

We stopped for lunch after that. Lilly was a star, yet again. All the people around us kept laughing at how cute she was. People seem to especially like that she likes to scream "HI!" at everyone. I don't remember much after that, since I got really light headed and faint after lunch. We decided to go for a bit of a drive, so I just passed out in the car. Apparently Lilly did too. By the way, her car seat makes a good pillow!! Unfortunately, I missed our 2nd bear sighting during my nap. I recall Ryan getting out of the car several times, but I was too sick to care. He saw a black bear this time. Lucky for me, he got some good pictures, so I feel like I saw it too. :P....Dinner that night was at another Goodrich campground favorite. Unfortunately, their favorite spot was being used by a couple of bison. We moved a few spots down and enjoyed their company during dinner. Lilly had hotdogs for the first time. We found out that she really loves ketchup. I'm not surprised, since it's the running joke in my family that I put ketchup on everything. 

Keeping with Griffin family trip tradition, I was the first and only person to get hurt on this trip. My family always had the motto: "It's always fun until Natalie gets hurt." I missed out on a few hikes, but I was glad that it wasn't worse. I don't have insurance right now, so I'm really thankful that I didn't break my ankle. For the most part, I was fine as long as I wasn't having to bend my foot too much. Getting to sleep that night was another story. Laying on my side caused my foot to pull, and having to turn made me want to cry. Between my ankle pain and Ryan's snoring, I had a hard night...

We didn't get to see the wolves up close, but as we were pulling into the mud pot hike, there was man with a large, wolf-looking dog. I told Ryan that it looked so much like a wolf. Turns out, it was a wolf! This man breeds 100% wolf pups. He said that this one's mom and dad aren't as domesticated, and they won't allow many people to approach them. This one was just like a normal dog. I even got a few kisses!

Mom, you'll be proud to know that I didn't even cry!! 

Ryan said the bear swam across the river and then started to chase around the pelicans. I was bummed that I didn't get to see it.

Had I wanted to "feed the bears," I totally could have, with how close we were.

Hobbling in for lunch. Kevin let me use his cane.

We let her wander while we cooked dinner. She ran right up to this stranger, yelled "HI!!!," and then gave him a hug. Ha!

Ryan cooked and burned his hotdog so fast, it was still cold in the middle.

I love this picture. We didn't even try for a second, since we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.

This was the hike I missed out on. I'm kind of glad I did, since that was the only time during the whole trip that it rained. Lilly LOVED the rain cover for her carrier.