Fun trip over the Beartooth Pass

We are back home from our trip over the Beartooth Pass. We recommend it to anyone. Our first night was spent in Red Lodge Montana. It is a fun little town. There were hundreds (no thousands) of bikers out on the road with us. All of them headed to Sturgis for the big bike get together. It was fun to see them. They are all in our age range and I wondered how many are professionals under all of that leather and bike gear? It was quite a sight to see hundreds of bikes going down the road every inch of the way. I did something random today and bought the 60's CD collection because of this trip. I cannot explain it.

The second day we drove over to Cody Wyoming. I was not prepared for how gorgeous of a drive it was. What a day. We did not have much time in Cody as we had to be at Lake Lodge on Yellowstone Lake by 5 pm for dinner reservations. We had a birthday party there for Jeff. We stayed in some quaint (HAHA) cabins that night. Three people in our group were the lucky ones and got the "Pioneer Cabins". These were worth a trip by the group to visit one. We barely all fit into the teeny room.

Up this morning and we headed into Grand Teton National Park. It rained on and off but not enough to spoil the trip. We did not get to see any more bears which was fine with everyone. So we are back and ready to get back to work. Anyone interested in doing this trip we can give you the scoop. It is worth it. More pictures in the next post.


Grand Teton Park

Bear Tooth Pass

Lions & tigers and BEARS oh my!

Grizzly bear and cubs! Oh my!

Today we headed out with all of our biker friends to make the trek over the Beartooth Pass. If you have never been you should make plans to do so. It is an amazing ride. First we drove thru Yellowstone Park. In all the years we have been going there I have never seen a bear except from a distance. Today shattered that record. We saw a bear up on a hill which was OK but not a real thrill. Shortly after that as I was day dreaming, we were driving along side of a drop off. Suddenly a big grizzly bear jumped up onto the road. She was just a few feet away from my side of the car. We are in the Corvette with the top down. She growled and Jeff thought she was going to jump into the car. She was agitated. There were two cubs with her. We had to stop to not hit them. Then she ran behind the car so I grabbed my camera and started shooting pictures and worrying that with one leap I would be lunch for the three bears. She quickly ran off of the road. Still kind of shaky from that experience we came upon stopped cars again. A black bear by the side of the road. I started taking pictures again. Jeff suddenly exclaimed "oh no" and jumped out of the car. I thought that it was a bear attack. But one of the ladies in our group had tried to stop and her bike went over. (She is fine with a few scratches to her bike). That is Jeff running to help get her up. Now the bear is headed right onto the road and our group trying to help her get up. Suddenly a ranger showed up and chased the bear off. I hope that today is as close as I ever get to a grizzly bear! Guess we will see what tomorrow brings as we head to Cody Wyoming and then into Yellowstone again.

Still hot in Idaho

Lily, Rachel and Ana in wheat field


Lily brown eyes.


Mary & Rachel


Mary in wheat field.


Ana blue eyes!


We played with the camera again in the wheatfield. It is such a pretty setting and we had fun posing everyone.

What a hot summer!!! It just never lets up much. We are looking forward to the beautiful fall days that we have here.

Busy days for all of us. Rachel is moving to Utah any second now. Maybe that should be my next survey...guess the day she arrives in Utah (and lands a place to live). We got her things moved out today. It is all sitting in a huge trailer out on the neighbors driveway. Leslie moves to Boise in the second week of August. So lots of packing and cleaning and unpacking ahead.

Bad hair pictures survey-vote to right

Ava no hair bow yet mess

Lily straight as a stick mess

Edie fuzzy mess

Grant buzzed mess

Mitch curly mess

Lauren wavy mess

Leslie pony tail mess

Jeff bed head mess

Christian poking straight up mess

Life is Good is a fact

We are all back after our "Life is Good" family get together at Henry's Lake in Island Park. It was a good time for all. The kids were in kiddy heaven with all of the cousins under one roof. We had to split them up after the first night so that everyone could get some rest.


Three canoes came with the cabin. They were out on the lake much of the time. I especially liked the early morning rides. Thanks Jeff & Eric.

Bob Franz who owns the cabin we stayed in brought his boat up for some fun action on Saturday. While out on the lake we saw this tornado on the water. It was much more impressive than this picture shows. I will post a better picture later. Very exciting.



We tied two baby quilts for Lauren. She is expecting a boy in November. Jeff became quite the quilter.

The kids all did crafts including making crowns for the girls and visors for the boys. Very creative bunch who proudly wore their new hats.



The cousins also had a treasure hunt. They had a blast finding their "treasure bags".

We ventured into Yellowstone and took the whole bunch to Old Faithful and the Paint Pots. We stopped at one of our favorite lunch stops in West Yellowstone, the Gusher. They were shocked at our group and seemed happy to have us leave (13 adults and 10 kids).

I liked the mornings best, so calm and peaceful on the lake.

Everyone had a "Life is Good" t-shirt. Looked nice in family photos don't you think. The kids thought we were nerds I think, but we loved them.

Grandpa Z stopped up to see us so we were able to have him and Nell in our family pics. These shots were hard to get everyone looking good, but I think we got a few good shots.

The trip was a success. Great food, fun activities and good memories for all. Nobody fell into the lake, the weather was great, even cooled down a bit. We had a bad hair contest one morning so stay tuned for the contest, we are letting the readers of this blog vote. There was some pretty bad hair to be seen.