Greetings from Yellowstone National Park! Our daughter Jaelene discovered Allegient Air and their very inexpensive flights from Mesa, Arizona to Idaho Falls, Idaho. That turned into a week’s trip to Yellowstone, Nina and I in our RV and Jaelene and crew in her rented-in-Idaho-Falls RV. We’re in Grant Village, the only place we could get reservations for a week (particularly the week leading up to the 4th of July).

Jaelene, her three boys (and our grandsons), her fine boyfriend Casey, and her boss Bob flew up last Monday. Their flight was about a half-hour late because they had to “change a tire” on the airplane. That’s a new one for me. We arrived in our campground at 11:30 pm and crashed. Since then we’ve had a great time. Tuesday was spent in the Old Faithful area. On our return to the campground we encountered a huge grizzly bear! Nina got some great pictures that’ll make it to the Internet sometime Real Soon Now.

Wednesday Jaelene, Casey, and Bob were planning to take a hike up to Observation Peak. They got most of the way up before running into fresh bear tracks and some bloody snow. They turned around…. We spent the day for the most part at the campground where we had some delicious dutch oven stew for dinner.

Today we went up to the Canyon area. Yellowstone Lake is very high. Yellowstone River is very full. I was amazed at how much water is running over the falls. Bob and Casey have never been here and they’ve both had a great time with Canyon a highlight of the trip.

Bob flies back to Mesa tomorrow (Friday). Jaelene, Casey, and the boys will fly back on Monday afternoon.

We’re having a nice time … it’s chilly at night but nice during the day … there’s large piles of snow throughout the campground (but getting smaller every day) … and Grant Village is a very nice campground. We’ll stay here again.

TTFN!