On Friday morning we got up bright and early since we had to make it all the way from Old Faithful to Billings, Mt. to catch our 5:30pm flight. Or so I thought...more on that later!
We were going to drive north away from Old Faithful and then cut over to the northeast exit, but then we calculated it on the map and it was actually shorter for us to backtrack to Lake Yellowstone and head north from there. We hit a bunch of construction on the way out of the park and it ended up taking 4 hours just to get to the park exit! One of the coolest things was on the way out in Lamar valley we saw 2 wolves. Jack had been wanting to see a wolf the whole time so I was so happy he got to...even if it was a ways off the road.
Right before getting to the exit of the park Zeke was dying to eat so we pulled over at this cute picnic spot by the river and let the kids do their favorite thing...throw rocks!
They had already been in the car for quite awhile so it was nice that they got to stretch their legs.
As you can see it was a bit windy!
Michael really enjoyed the panoramic feature on his phone. It was a gorgeous place to stop. We didn't stay long though since we still had a ways to go.
We didn't take a picture when we entered the park so I made sure we took one on the way out. Can you find Owen or at least part of him?
Once out of the park it was only about 4 miles until we came to Cooke City. This is the last town before you got over the Beartooth mountains so we had to stop for lunch. Of course being a small town there is no such thing as MCD's there. I walked into one cafe to see what was on the menu and when I saw that a plain ol' grilled cheese cost $7 I walked out. We ended up going to a cute sandwich place and got sandwiches to go since according to the owner we still had a good 3 - 4 hour drive and by this time it was 12:30 and we needed to be at the airport by 3:30! You can imagine that by now my anxiety was building up!
Once out of Cooke City we started driving on what Charles Kuralt the traveling CBS Journalist called "The most beautiful drive in America!"
My Dad had urged us to take this drive since we would be so close. At first I wasn't interested because it was going to add about 2 hours of drive time to our trip and with 4 kids you honestly want to be in the car as few hours as possible. But...once I started thinging about it I just couldn't pass it up. I mean Charles Kuralt has traveled all over America and this is THE ONE road that he said was the most beautiful!
Of course my pictures don't do it a bit of justice, but if you ever get a chance to drive this road...DO IT!
There were tons of mountain lakes to be seen.
Lots of curvy roads!
You can see the highway in the distance switchbacking up the mountain. 
Glaciers!
More curves!
Finally at the top which is over 10,000 ft above sea level...the highest I've been in a car, Michael got out and took some panoramic shots. It was as you can imagine quite cold up there and seriously windy. Michael said it took all his strength to keep himself on that rock to take the pictures. Also when he came back to the van he almost couldn't get the door open. 
It was...
absolutely...
breathtaking!
During this time a miracle happened....ALL 4 kids were asleep at the same time!
Shortly after coming out of the mountains we made another stop so I could feed Zeke and the kids could run around. After finally getting cell service I decided to check in for our flight using my phone and maybe possibly looking into getting us on a flight for the next day if we couldn't get to the airport on time. It was during the checking in that I noticed it said our flight didn't leave until 7:35pm. I thought that our flight had been delayed, but then I looked at my iternary that I had printed out for our trip and nope...7:35pm! In my mind I had told myself that we needed to be at the airport by 5:30, but somewhere along the line my brain turned that into our flight was leaving at 5:30! Oh well...it ended up being perfect since we needed to have time to stop and buy some snacks for the plane (Wal-Mart where I forgot to shut Zeke's door and all our stuff was in the van and no one took a thing.), get gas and clean out the rental van. Why clean the van you say? Oh I don't know because our 3 older children are pigs! This is what the floor of the van looked like...
It was awful! Stuff was EVERYWHERE!
Once we got pass security we settled in at our gate and I went through and reorganized all the kids backpacks. They had taken everything apart...all the colored pencils were out of their art cases and all the removable felt pieces for their quiet books were misplaced...it was a mess! Since I'm an organizational freak it was driving me crazy!
The kids had been watching the portable DVD player in the van and the battery had run out so we had to plug it in so it could charge.
Zeke had some laughs with Daddy and Ella and I went in search for something to eat where I spent the most I've ever spent on a thing of yogurt - $2.35! Those small airport eateries are highway robbery!
The flight was pretty non eventful...we did switch up the seating arrangement though. Ella ended up sitting with Owen and Jack sat back with me. It was SO much nicer for all of us. If Ella can see me she will just sit there and say my name over and over again.
While we were landing it was fun since it was almost dark and everything was lit up. I was able to tell the kids when we were flying over certain places....we're over the SuperMall, there goes Emerald Downs, we're flying over our house, there's Fred Meyer's.
Our friend Al that took us to the airport came and picked us up and we were home and in bed by 10:30pm. Exhausted and oh so happy to be home and in our own beds!
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