Yellowstone Day 2 - Race Day

I woke up extremely early Saturday morning and got dressed for my race.  Scott drove me into West Yellowstone, to where the race would start, then went back home to the sleeping kids.  The race was scheduled to start at 7am.  I arrived at 6:20, and was relieved to not see snow on the ground.  I had borrowed a sweatshirt from Shauna, but as soon as the sun came out, I took it off and just wore my short sleeved running shirt.  The wind from the night before was completely gone, and it was just a gorgeous morning.

The race started just outside West Yellowstone, then headed up into the mountains.  It was such a beautiful course.   It was also a very difficult course.  Lots of hills on mountain trails.  I loved it, though, and hope to be able to do it again some day.

Shauna was such a good sport, and stuck with me the whole time, instead of leaving me behind.

  Scott brought all the kids to the finish line to cheer me on.

Sorry these pictures aren't better.  I just did a screen capture of it on my phone, and couldn't get it to download into a program that I could edit (crop) them in. 

 

My medal.  It's really pretty awesome.  13.1 miles of mountain trails.  That is quite the accomplishment in my book!

 After the race, we went back to our cabin and let me shower and rest for a few minutes.  Then we headed into Yellowstone Park to explore. It took all of about 5 minutes in the park before we spotted our first wildlife.

We went to Old Faithful for our first stop.  Shauna's family was there, as was my cousin Bob and his family (his wife Page also ran the half marathon).

Then we waited patiently for Old Faithful to erupt.

Aaron sat through a ranger talk outside, while the rest of us went in to explore the Old Faithful Visitor's Center.

The kids signed up to do the Jr. Ranger program, and each had a booklet they needed to fill out.  So we headed over to the gift shop to buy them their very own Yellowstone pen.  I couldn't help but smile watching my crew of kids walking.  I'm sure we made for quite the scene everywhere we went.

The rest of the exploring that day was done without me and Owen.  He fell asleep in the car, and since I was worn out from my race that morning, I volunteered to sit in the car with him while Scott took the kids our around Upper and Lower Geyser Basins.  Savannah did a great job of taking pictures for me so I didn't completely miss out.

That evening, Savannah went to the Playmill again with Aunt Shauna's family, to see Les Miserables.  The rest of us went home for a firepit at the cabin.