Disneyland...National Park Style

Day 2. We slept not very well, due to the fact that I forgot to pack the 4D batteries that I thought were for the lantern, and ended up being for the little machine that blows up the mattress we sleep on. Oops. And Virginia City's 15 souvenir shops all close at 6 o'clock sharp, so we slept on the ground. Sadie mercifully woke us all up at 6 am. I'm sure all the other campers were happy about that as well. We ate some dry cinnamon rolls and headed out on the road. We got into West Yellowstone an hour and a half later. Sierra was having fun playing the license plate game, which works really really well in the Yellowstone area. We visited the Bear and Wolf Discover Center, and saw lots of wolves and bears, including the mama bear of two little cubs we used to visit at the Pullman Bear Center. That was cool. We then headed for Yellowstone, and when we got to the big Ranger Station entrance we all decided it was just like Disneyland. There was a huge welcoming sign, and Forest Rangers in these neat outfits, and we had to pay a ton of money to drive through. There were also thousands of people driving through from almost every state in the country (trust me, we have a map with little check marks on each state we saw...the license plate game). There were traffic jams from people jumping out of their cars and taking photos of animals on the side of the road (we did this too), and there were people everywhere. We drove by Old Faithful but decided to skip the hike to see it because of two reasons. First of all, Sadie was asleep, and the number one rule is don't wake a sleeping baby. Second of all, the parking lot for Old Faithful and the lodge and the shopping mall (yes, shopping mall) looks like the parking lot at Disneyland, jam packed full. It was insane. So we kept trucking along. Grand Teton National Park was less crowded and so beautiful. The mountains are breathtaking. We stopped to eat lunch and Sierra swam in a lake. It was really nice, except for the ginormous mosquitos. We then drove through Rodeo Drive North, I mean Jackson. I don't think Jackson should really belong to the state of Wyoming, I think it should technically belong to California. We camped at an awesome site about 8 miles off the road with a hot springs. I think that the only reason it wasn't full at 7pm when we got there was that it was 8 miles off the main road down a gravel road, and people from California must not like to get their Lexus and Mercedes dirty. Because every other campground was packed, and this one was way more awesome than any other campground I have ever stayed at. We made some dinner, blew up our mattress and had a peaceful night of sleep.