Natalie & Ryan: Chasing Waterfalls

Saturday morning, the gang split up. Ryan, Christian, Lilly, and I all decided that we wanted to go see Mystic Falls, while everyone else wanted to go to Old Faithful. Mystic Falls is a little more than a mile long, leading to a very pretty waterfall. The hike wasn't too bad. Mostly flat until right before the falls. I was pretty proud of myself because I could feel that my work at the gym was paying off. The old Natalie definitely couldn't have done that. I may have been a bit too proud of myself, because when we got to the falls, there was a sign saying that there was an addition loop portion to the hike, and I stupidly suggested we give it a go.

I stared up the vertical cliff side, and psyched myself up for such a hike. It wasn't too bad at first. After an hour of going up and up with no break in ascension, I started to hate myself. Literally, we were hiking straight up gravel, winding paths, steps, sand, and no sign that the end was anywhere near. Finally, after what felt like forever on the stair stepper at the gym, we made it to the top of the mountain. We could see, in the VERY far distance, where we began. We all just kind of looked at each other and groaned, knowing that we still had to go back down the mountain. The path down was just as hard and scary as the path up, especially since it was covered in downed trees. Thankfully, this time I didn't sprain my ankle. We all somehow managed to survive to the end. Despite how incredibly hard it was and how tired we were, deep down inside, I was super proud that I did it.

The other group was still at Old Faithful, so we went to our designated meeting spot for lunch and waited for them. Suffice it to say, the hot day, dehydration, and intense hike were starting to catch up with all of us. My head was killing me. We ended up waiting for about an hour and a half for the other group to show up, so we entertained ourselves in the manner that we always do...LILLY! She found more crows to chase, played on the banks of the river, and ran around in the grass. Oh, and she biffed it big time. I came walking up from the car, and as she saw me, she came running at full sprint to give me a hug, saying "Mommy!" She was going too fast and ended up falling and scraping her face on the gravel. It made me want to cry! She's now sporting some sad scabs....Lunch was delicious! Erin and Drew made wraps. I won't even try to remember the name, but trust me when I say they were yummy. And, to wrap up lunch (hahaha, ha..ha..), Lilly fell off the bench of the picnic table, landing on her head in the EXACT same spot that she did earlier. Poor thing just wanted to bash her head on everything. It was most definitely time for a nap after that...

We decided to give the babies a chance at naps, so we drove around Hayden Valley for a while, looking for animals. Lilly didn't nap, but I did. I fell asleep to the soothing sound of Colton, reading from his "Deaths in Yellowstone" book. A monsoonal rain ruined our plans of having dinner at our favorite campsite, so we headed back to the cabin, in hopes that the storm would pass by the time we got back. That's exactly what happened, and we were able to roast some hot dogs over a fire. It was an early night for me, since I was still crashing from our hike of death.

Not even on the trail yet, and she's already pooped. She slept for about half of the hike

LIES!!!

I love chipmunks

We had no idea what was coming...

We could see Old Faithful from the falls. You can see a lot of cool things when you hike to the top of a MOUNTAIN!

Up, up, up we go!

Believe it or not, we still weren't at the top. We started on flat ground, if that gives you any perspective as to how much hiking uphill we did. Oh, and Bear-bear tried to commit suicide. We went off the path a bit to get this picture, and right as Ryan got to the edge of a straight-down cliff, Lilly threw the bear. He landed right on the edge of the cliff, forcing me to crawl over to get him.