After two weeks of camping in Yellowstone, I have just one thing to say: it’s time to break up with Real Life. The RV lifestyle is our soulmate.

You may (or may not) remember from a previous blog post that we bought our RV in December, remodeled it, and promptly blew a water gasket on our first trip.

So we were a little wary of making the 1000-mile trek from Arizona to Yellowstone National Park and decided to break it into several days. On the way out of Arizona we stayed in our first Walmart parking lot, and moved onto a lakeside campground in Utah the next day. On the third night we stayed at the base of some beautiful mountains outside of Jackson, Wyoming, and on the fourth day we made our way into the park. The RV ran like a champ the whole way – and even went over the Teton Mountains!

There is SO much to say about Yellowstone. Of course, it’s beautiful, with its gazillion lakes and rivers and trees. And it’s amazing, with geysers and rising steam and volcanic activity and bison. Lots and lots of bison. We saw a wolf and an elk and lots of cool birds.

We hit all the main points, like Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, Fort Yellowstone, the Grand Prismatic Spring, and the geysers where that tourist fell in and disappeared a few weeks ago. (Tourists are crazy – after reading a sign about how acidic the water is in some of these geysers, a woman knelt down and scooped some of the water onto her face and neck. I am surprised her face didn’t melt off.)

We swam in hot springs!

If anything could be better than Yellowstone, it’s meeting up with your high school BFF in Yellowstone! Although we talk on the phone all the time, we rarely see each other in person, so spending 8 days together, in person, was really special. She has two kids who are the same ages as our two oldest kids, and all of them got along great, and played so well together.

I could go on and on, but I’ll let the pictures tell the story. 🙂

Yellowstone was awesome. Really, really awesome. I want to move to Wyoming.

But even more awesome was the opportunity to live in our RV for two weeks. It required us to hang out together most of the time – and it was fun! We lived simply, with only what we needed. We stayed up late with the sun, and got up early.

No, it wasn’t perfect. There was crying and whining and a few injuries (including a black eye and a cut-open heel).

This pretty much sums up the hiking portion of our trip. There was just more than enough hiking for a 4-year-old to tolerate.

A temporary solution to the hiking-whining problem.

First black eye – from a sword fighting incident in the forest.

But it was fun. It was so special. And the Dartt family is ready to part ways with Real Life and become a bunch of nomads.

Oh – and the trip wouldn’t be complete without a minor disaster. Twenty minutes from home, two of our tires went flat. Fortunately, my hubby fixed that right up and we made it home.

Thanks, Real Life, for the reminder that you’re always waiting in the wings.

It’s not you, it’s us.