Accommodations–Yellowstone with Kids #2

I had heard about Yellowstone growing up, but was surprised to find out how (relatively) close it is to Calgary. Although you could get there in one (long) day, we haven chosen to stay in Great Falls overnight both times we’ve gone. We went for the first time last year when Gordie was just over a year and enjoyed it so much that we went again this year.
I’m definitely not an authority on Yellowstone, we were only there for a few days both times. What I’ve written is more what I would say to a friend over coffee before she took her kids to Yellowstone.
Be sure to look at my tips on Taking Your Kids to US National Parks, Gordie’s Favorite Things In Yellowstone, Things to See Around Old Faithful, Things to See in Other Geothermal Areas,  Other Things to See In Yellowstone and Wildlife of Yellowstone.

Accommodations

The first time we went to Yellowstone we stayed in a hotel in West Yellowstone. It ended up taking a long time to get back into the park because in addition to the actual distance, bison like the area and wander across the road (and along the road) and people blocked the road as they stopped to take pictures.
So for our trip this year we looked into getting lodging inside the park itself. We found out that you need to book in advance, even when we were booking in December for our trip in June, it wasn’t easy to find 3 consecutive nights. Although I would stay inside the park again, I wouldn’t stay at the same place all three (or whatever) nights. Yellowstone has a few lodging areas and if we were staying for 3 nights, I would stay at 3 different places in the park. It would be a bit of a pain to pack up every day, but then you don’t have to spend so much of your time just driving back and forth.
Staying inside the park is not going to be for everyone though. The rooms are surprisingly well priced as the rates are price controlled, but may lack some of the amenities you would like. The cabins and lodges do not have radios, TVs, air conditioning or internet. Not all rooms (even in the lodges) have their own bathroom and those that do will typically have a shower but no bathtub.

We didn’t spend a lot of time in the cabin, we were out early and came back late and Gordie had his afternoon nap in the car. So it was really all we needed.
We stayed in a cabin by the Old Faithful Lodge that did have a bathroom. These cabins are small and a little austere. The picture you see of the outside of the cabin is misleading as each cabin is a duplex with two units inside it. In the picture I took of the inside of the cabin I am standing in the doorway. There is a small desk to the right with a kitchen chair, and to the left is the bathroom and the sink. There is a small heater, but it was still cold enough the first night that we didn’t think Gordie would be warm if we set blankets up on the floor for him to sleep on. I expect the cabins get pretty hot in the summer and there is only a small fan in the room.
If you are planning on staying in a cabin with kids you really want to think about your sleeping arrangements. The one bedroom (with a bathroom) cabins have only a queen bed (and not a generous one at that) although there would be room to set up an air mattress or cot or two on the floor. The hotel will supply playpen cribs for children under 2 years old. Gordie ended up sleeping between us on the bed, but if he was any older this wouldn’t have been a functional solution. There are cabins with two beds, but you have to share a communal bathroom.

Gordie struggled to fall asleep in the cabin (in part because we kept him out too late :) because there is just no way to give him any distance from us to let him fall asleep on his own - without leaving him by himself. There is only one chair and the room is so small you just can’t help but be right there in front of him.

Overall though I’d really recommend staying in the park if you are planning a trip in advance. The lodgings are reasonably priced, it cuts out a lot of time in the car and you don’t want to spend a lot of time in your room when there is so much to see in the park anyway.

Updated to add: This year - 2012 (although I said I wouldn't) we ended up staying in a cabin for 4 nights at the Canyon area. These cabins were more expensive, but were nicer, had 2 queens and a full bathroom (and a coffee maker that took k-cups!). I had thought the location would feel out of the way but it actually provided good access to the whole park. If you are planning on staying for a few days and exploring the park, it's a great location.
Check out the next post in the series - Things to See Around Old Faithful.

Gordie’s Favorite Things in Yellowstone–Yellowstone #1

I had started to write the most epic post of all time about Yellowstone. Eventually my husband pointed out that it could probably be broken up into more manageable chunks instead of one giant post. So, here you have part 1 of my series on Yellowstone – Gordie’s favorite things.

1. The tour buses and RVs – Gordie was probably more excited to look for these out the window than anything else while we were there. Luckily there are a lot of them.




2. Playing with his toy cars - These were a godsend in the restaurant. I am so glad we brought them.
 


3. The Yellowstone Jammer Buses – Gordie loved seeing these replicas of the old tour buses in the park. We Ended up getting Gordie a die-cast model of one. Truthfully, they are not toys to be played with and it wasn’t age appropriate. But he played with it in the car endlessly - It was worth every penny.
 
4. Going on Walks – Thankfully Gordie loves going for walks outside because we did a lot of it. When we’d stop the car he’d exclaim – I found the walk! Yellowstone maintains many pathways and boardwalk to take people through some of the most interesting features of the park many of which I’ll discuss below.

 

Be sure to look at my tips on Taking Your Kids to US National Parks,  Accommodations, Things to See Around Old Faithful, Things to See in Other Geothermal Areas,  Other Things to See In Yellowstone and Wildlife of Yellowstone.

Traveling to US National Parks with Kids

My husband and I took our son Gordie (2 years old) on an 9-day driving trip from Calgary in early June to see Yellowstone National Park, Devil’s Tower National Monument, Mount Rushmore National Monument, the Badlands National Park, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument and Deadwood National Historic Landmark.

Last year we took him to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks in late June. I love history and am fascinated by interesting geology so the US national parks have natural appeal for me. I’m going to blog about the different areas we visited this year in future posts but I thought I’d write about some overall thoughts first.

Although the mandates of the Canadian and US National parks are quite similar, from my experience, the US national park service puts more of a focus on making the enjoyment of the national parks accessible for everyone.

1. Passport Book

My first suggestion if you’re planning on visiting a few National Parks/Monuments on this trip or in the future is to get a Passport Book. They are inexpensive (around $10US) and you can collect free ink stamps with the date and location at all the National Park visitor centres. Most places also have a unique stamp for the park (see picture below). You can also purchase them at the visitor centres, so you don’t need to get one ahead of time unless you want to. They also have a place for stickers that you can purchase with a picture of the park or monument.

We ended up getting one at the end of our last trip because I didn’t really figure out what it was at first. This year we managed to nearly fill up the Rocky Mountain section and so decided to purchase the Passport Explorer Binder at the end of this trip. It is $50US but you can take out or add pages to the different sections. Since we may end up visiting quite a number of National Parks and Monuments in the Rocky Mountain area over the next few years, we decided to pick it up.

 

2. Visitor Centres 

Each park and monument has a visitor centre (or more than one in the case of larger parks like Yellowstone) where you can get information, maps guides, get your passport stamp, sign up for the Jr Ranger program, see educational exhibits as well as purchase souvenirs at the park association store. At most of these store you can buy a membership to the association (for around $30). The parks all have different associations, but if you buy a membership for one, you can use your discount of $10-15% at most of the other association stores.

3. Jr. Ranger Program

Many of the National Parks and Monuments offer the Jr. Ranger Program. In this program, kids learn about science, history, art and nature through completing a series of activities and sharing their answers with the Ranger. The goal is to help kids better appreciate what they are seeing by having material that helps them interact with it at their own level. The kids receive a booklet to complete with different levels required of kids of different ages. Upon completion the kids receive a patch or badge and a Jr. Ranger certificate. I’m am ridiculously excited for Gordie to be old enough to do this but it is only for ages 5-12. Although they will sometimes be lenient for a 4 year old with older siblings. Ultimately though they wants the kids to be able to understand the Jr Ranger oath to protect the area and plants and animals within it and do no harm and as well as the activities themselves.

4. National Park Passes

Most areas will require you to purchase a park pass which costs $10-$25 and is good for a week. You can also purchase an annual pass for $80. There are some areas (such as Mount Rushmore) where a separate organization owns the parking area so you still need to pay for parking even if you have a pass. It’s a good idea to price this out before your trip and consider where you may go over the rest of the year. I was surprised to find that even though we went to 2 national parks and 3 national monuments it was actually cheaper for us to not get the park pass this year.

5. Always Make Sure the Route you are Planning is Passable

Many of the parks are in very unique geographic areas and can have road conditions quite different from the surrounding area. The Going to the Sun Road in Glacier as well as many of the routes in Yellowstone are closed over the winter. The time of year at which they open can vary depending on the weather. It is easy to think that you wouldn’t need to check the road conditions once you have hit June, however we were surprised to find the Road out of Yellowstone through Cody Wyoming was closed due to a slide and we had to amend our route when we got there (significant detour north into montana instead of travelling across WY). I wouldn’t travel to Yellowstone or Glacier again at any time of year without first checking the road conditions.

 

6. Accomodations

Some of the parks such as Yellowstone and Glacier have cabins and lodges that you can stay at inside the park. We had assumed that these would be frightfully expensive but they are price controlled so at least in some cases they are actually cheaper than the hotels outside the park. This does mean that they are not going to be as plush as they might be otherwise though. We stayed at a cabin this year and it was quite small. It had a heater and a small fan, but it would probably be quite hot in the heat and cold in the cold. It did have its own bathroom with a shower but not all the cabins or even all the rooms at the lodge do. Because we did opt for our own bathroom we only had one bed and it was not a generous queen. Which made sleeping a little squishy. They do have cribs that you can get for kids under 2 though.

It is also good to note that they fill up quickly so if you do want to stay inside the park, book ahead. It was challenging to find three days together in Yellowstone when we were booking in December. That being said if you are in a large park like Yellowstone, consider staying in different areas of the park on different nights to make it easier to access different parks of the park. We’re definitely going to try to do that next time we’re in Yellowstone.

7. Read up on the area Before Going – Lots of Hidden Gems

This is one of the things that we had done well last trip, but fell short on this trip. Look around at the tourism websites for the area you are going as well as the national park website to find out about things you may want to see that aren’t quite as famous as Yellowstone or Mount Rushmore. Last year we found out about the ringing rocks of Montana which is a type of rock formation that they have only found in 5 places in the world which sound like a bell when you hit them with a hammer. This year, we ended up missing the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site because it was closed by the time we got there. We hadn’t planned on going to it or Badlands National Park, but they ended up being a lot closer to Rushmore and Devil’s Tower than we had realized when we were planning our trip.

Chocolate Quinoa Cake: The Cake I Couldn’t Kill Even Though I Tried

I didn’t set out to try and kill this cake. I decided to make it for my birthday. People made fun of my when I made grilled angel food cake with balsamic vinegar, fresh pepper and cut up strawberry topping for Gordie’s first birthday cake  (he just ate the topping)  but I figured I’d get a free pass to try something different on my birthday. Which actually I did.
Somehow though even though I can usually follow a recipe, I managed to:

1. not let the Quinoa cool before I tried to put it in the food processor with the wet ingredients.
   
2. not let the Quinoa/wet ingredient mixture cool before i mixed it with the dry ingredients (even though I had noticed that I should have let it cool already)
   
3. Put the cake in the oven and then remember that I had read the word butter, but had not in fact touched any butter.
   
4. Took the two cake pans out of the oven (after only 4 or 5 minutes) and poured in  75% canola 25% melted butter into the two pans and stirred it around a little bit.

I had also managed to mess up my icing by putting in the food processor instead of using my hand mixer and then adding way to much milk. This predictably made it a lot soupier than I had intended. I have no idea what possessed me. But let’s face it, it’s basically sugar and butter, it still tasted good.

The cake was more of a surprise. Although a chunk of it did break off when I took it out of the pan and tried to peel the parchment paper off, it was delicious. I almost gave up on it after I made so many mistakes, but clearly this is a robust recipe which can take a bit of abuse. It’s definitely a dense cake rather than fluffy, but it is moist and no one could guess it was Quinoa if they didn’t already know. And it is super chocolaty tasting.
I would definitely make it again and honestly, wouldn’t even bother with the icing.

Quinoa Chocolate Cake Recipe

(adapted from Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood)

• 2/3 cup quinoa (I didn’t rinse mine but they recommend it)
  
• 1 1/3 cup water
  
• 1/3 cup milk
  
• 4 large eggs
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
  
• 3/4 cup butter melted and cooled (oh, oops again)
  
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
  
• 1 cup cocoa powder
  
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
  
• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions

1. Bring Quinoa and water to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan. Cover, reduce temperature to low and cook for 10 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it sit for another 10 minutes with the lid on. (I don’t find a difference between leaving it on the burner with the heat off and just taking it off the heat). Or you can just cook the Quinoa according to the package instructions.
   
2. Next, take the lid off and fluff with a fork. Let the Quinoa cool. And by that I mean actually get to room temperature instead of leaving it for 30 seconds and moving on to the next step like I did.
   
3. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two 8 inch square or round cake pans with parchment paper. (I ended up using 8x8 square pan and a large loaf pan, so you can probably use what you like just make sure you do a good toothpick test).
   
4. Combine the milk, eggs and vanilla in a blender or food processor. Add the butter and two cups of cooked Quinoa (I definitely did not measure this, I just used what all of what was cooked, it should be right anyway) and blend until smooth. (you could still see a lot of the individual quinoa when I stopped blending, but it wasn’t getting any smoother and was at least consistent in texture).
   
5. Mix the dry ingredients (sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Add the wet ingredient/Quinoa mixture and mix well.
   
6. Divide into your two pans and bake on the centre rack of your oven for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
   
7. Let the cake cool completely before serving.
   
8. Store amazingly well in a sealed container in the fridge. Honestly the leftovers were just about as good as fresh. You can also freeze it but I haven’t tried that myself.

Juggling Being a Crier and a Mommy

I am a crier. Being in control of my tear ducts is not one of my strengths. Although this was not helped by pregnancy hormones, I was a crier long before I was pregnant and I still am.
I don’t just cry when I am sad. I’ve also been known to cry when I’m angry. This was confusing for my friends as a child. I nearly backhanded more than one poor girl who tried to comfort me while I was furious.
But that’s not all. I cry when I’m worn out and stressed too. Often pretty easily. This has sometimes very awkward. I have made many doctors (and 1 dentist) feel confused and perhaps even a little uncomfortable when they have just told me I am fine. And probably just have a viral infection or I need some antibiotics (with the dentist I had a cavity). At any rate I was given information that is completely minor in severity and I am reduced to tears.
I even cried in the front row of a 10 person University class with a disproportionately high workload when we were unable to persuade the professor that we needed an extension for our 30 page paper because it would throw off his schedule. Looking at this, you might think that I cry all the time. And although that is not actually true I do end up crying in front of my son and my handicapped brother more often than I would really like.
I actually think that it’s good for kids to see their parents have emotions and deal with them. I just wish my son didn’t have to have this valuable learning experience quite so often.
Because of my brother I’ve had to deal with this issue for a long time. It causes him distress to see anyone, but especially me, upset. So I am well practiced in the art of crying while assuring someone else that everything is still okay.
Usually what I say is “I’m feeling sad. It’s okay to feel sad sometimes. But I’m okay. I’m just feeling sad right now.” If I can explain why, then try to do that too, but that’s not always easy.
I’d love to know about some other strategies that I could use. What do you do when you cry in front of your kids?

Mother’s Day–Not Every Special Day is Going to be a Good Day

I don’t actually mind the so called ‘Hallmark’ holidays. Having a day to remind you to stop and appreciate your significant other, mother, father what have you, is overall I think a good thing. However, I do sympathize with those who dislike such holidays. It can put a lot of pressure on one day and it can be easy for many to feel left out.

For me, this mother’s day was… I can’t think of the right word, so perhaps I’ll just explain. When I woke up, I just wasn’t feeling well. I had a huge headache and was so emotionally fragile I wouldn’t be surprised if I made people wonder if I was pregnant. I recognized that I was grumpy, irritable and emotional, but sometimes having this level of introspection gets you no closer to being able to control these feelings.

That is not a good start. On top of that, my only child is 2. He doesn’t have a clue about what mother’s day is about. My husband, has many wonderful qualities but he is not likely to help my son do cute mother’s day crafts or anything or tell me just to put my feet up all day. Which really, I respect. I’m not his mother and he has his own mother he needs to try to make feel special that day.

So really it was just a day, and not a very good one. I didn’t even do a very good job of making my mother feel appreciated.

Now really, the day was fine. Gordie was an angel, my husband gave me a rose, and both our families had a lovely dinner together. And that is plenty to feel grateful for.

But in the end, it is just a day, and if it ends up being a bad or disappointing day it doesn’t matter. It’s just one day. Days like these are great opportunities to reflect on the important people who are or who have been in our lives but it’s best not to ascribe them too much meaning. All the other 354 days of the year are just as important. And overall? Those have been great.

Weekly Meal Plan–May 9-13

This Week’s Meal Plan

Monday – Lentils and Ground Beef Burritos
Tuesday – Cranberry Turkey Burgers
Wednesday –  Tuna Melts
Thursday – Banana and Chicken Fried Rice Recipe
Friday – Beef Stew  

 

Last Week’s Meal Plan

Monday – BLT sandwiches
Tuesday – Chicken Salad Sandwiches from Cook This not That!
Wednesday – Lentils and Ground Beef Burritos
Thursday – Salsa Pasta Salad
Friday – Tuna Salad Melts 

As predicated, last week was a disaster. We ate out a lot. I’m still glad I menu planned though. I used the Salsa Pasta salad for lunch on Thursday and supper for the family on Friday while I was at a MomsFest blogger meet-up. Gordie and I had the chicken salad sandwiches for lunch a couple days too.

What We Actually Ate

Monday – Bacon, Hummus and Cheese Sandwiches
Tuesday – Swiss Chalet
Wednesday – Pizza
Thursday – Wendy’s
Friday – Salsa Pasta Salad