Mountain Man Rendezvous

Every summer just on the edge of West Yellowstone you will find a little festival called Mountain Man Rendezvous.

Sadly, we aren't in Montana this year to see it, but we did have a fun stop there last year.  Fur hats and all.

There are lots of things to buy from furniture to horns...

Testing out a porch swing....

There are numerous tents and lots of characters dressed to period, all worth checking out.

Lucky for you if you're in the West Yellowstone area, Mountain Man Rendezvous is going on right now!

Stop by and say hi to everyone for us!

♥TCW

A Walk in the Woods {Rendezvous Ski Trails, West Yellowstone, MT)

My parents left for our favorite place in the world last weekend and have arrived at the cabin in the woods. We all so wish we could go this year too, but with baby on the way we are saving our time for her arrival instead......I'll say she's worth it, but we will all still miss our annual cabin trip so.

In my nostalgia I realized I have a bunch of things to share with you from our trip last year.  So let's start exploring now!

Welcome to the Rendezvous Ski Trail (which is a nice trail run or walking area in the summer).

Where dogs like to run and kids do too.  With a mouth full of Clif bar Levi was off......

....but thankfully willing to wait up.

That face!
And so it went, walking and running and walking.

And well.  Peeing.  Anyone with boys knows this is a common occurrence.

There are many beautiful things to see and photograph.

And when you spend a lot of time with a camera and a 4 year old this happens too.

Both dogs took turns running and running....

Crunchy:


Otis:

Then Levi decided to join Otis too.

And then we went back to walking.

And flower hunting.

All in all, this is a good place for a happy dog.

And a happy fam.

Hey, P.S.  Don't forget to check the map.

The trails loop and even though you are right on the edge of town, the loops might be confusing.  Also, the shooting range is nearby.

This area makes for a great flat trail run or walk in the summer and is conveniently located right at the edge of West Yellowstone.  Happy Trails!

♥TCW

West Yellowstone - Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center (aka There is No Such Thing as The Bad Wolf!)

Once Upon A Time......
I read The Munchkin a book called Three Little Pigs*.  It was his favorite book.  We read it.
ALL.  THE. TIME.
And then.  All we heard about was The Bad Wolf.
"What if The Bad Wolf is in there?"
"Is The Bad Wolf outside?"
"What about The Bad Wolf?"

That darned bad wolf!  We stopped reading the book.
But still, the requests continued, "I want to read The Bad Wolf Book tonight" (little pigs who?).
We told him we threw the book away because it scared him.
He persisted.
We still haven't read it.

He still talks about the bad wolf....two years later.
So, we talk about how The Bad Wolf is NOT REAL.  We tell alternative stories of The Bad Wolf, how he's misunderstood, how he only wanted to be friends with the piggies, but his allergies kept making him blow the house down - by accident!

But all along, I couldn't wait to get The Munchkin back to West Yellowstone, to the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center, so he could see some REAL wolves in action.  And Grizzlies.  And Birds.

The Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center is a non-profit wildlife park and educational facility.  For various reasons, the animals at the facility cannot survive in the wild and "serve as ambassadors for their wild counterparts".  If you visit Yellowstone, I highly recommend a stop here.  You will likely not see a Grizzly or Wolf in the park - in 5 visits we have seen two grizzlies (from very far away) and zero wolves.  The Discovery Center will give you the opportunity to see all of them, up close but safely too.

Check out the feet on that guy!

We called ahead to find out when the wolves were being fed.  (Grizzlies are fed every hour, the wolves are on another schedule.)  It was SO worth it to see this!

I would recommend getting there early to grab a spot by the window in the viewing house area.
After waiting awhile, this guy came out and dumped a bunch of salmon in the enclosure stream.

And then we watched.
And the wolf watched us.

And then....within just a few seconds, the wolf caught one!

This was seriously one of the highlights of our trip.  It was so cool to watch.

Oh yeah, did I mention they have grizzlies too?

And birds...

Like any good day in the woods, we ended ours with S'mores.

We think this boy "gets" the wolf now.
We hope.

We had many great adventures on our road trip.  I plan to bring them to you in segments over the next few weeks or so.  I hope you enjoy!!

P.S.  Being the professional blogger that I am (er...un-professional), I remembered my camera!
But I didn't charge the battery.  Blerg.  All of these pics in this post are compliments of my mamasita. Thanks mom!



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