A Series of Unfortunate Events

Yesterday we went to Yellowstone with high hopes and tons of enthusiasm, but ended up greatly disappointed and I'm putting it down in the books as the worst trip I've ever gone on. I don't know why, but for some reason everything seemed to be against us (a slight exaggeration, there were a few fun parts). Maybe it was the fact that we were so prepared before we left! Seriously, it was awesome. The car was washed, fluids were checked, tire pressure was checked, and topped off with gas. I had everything and anything you could imagine Nico needing, plus extra food and clothes in case something happend, and I even packed both lunch and dinner so that we wouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg on food inside the park. We went to bed the night before excited with our trip planned out, with the route to take due to a little bit of road construction. No big deal, while the construction would add on a bit more mileage to the day, it was do-able.
Well, we entered the park through West Yellowstone and the first 20 miles should have been a hint enough for us to just turn around and go home. Last year when we went to Yellowstone within the first 5 minutes after entering the park we saw tons of animals. I don't think we saw one animal until we had passed Old Faithful! Then, as we pulled into the parking lot of Old Faithful, everyone was walking back to their cars meaning we had just barely missed the eruption. (We didn't care too much since we'd already seen it erupt, so we just checked out the nearby geysers.) But by this time it was time to give the kid a bottle. Well, we had packed plenty of bottles, and this trip went with the Playtex Vent-air bottles I got at my baby shower. (We normally go with the Nursers, but Nico seems to like the flow of the others right now.) The concept of the Vent-air is that you screw on a top and bottom lid, with the bottom having several tiny holes in the bottom (I think for air to escape or something like that) and there's a little plastic sealer thing that you put over the holes to prevent the liquid to leak out of the holes in the bottom. That probably doesn't make sense, but the point of the story is that normally we don't have a problem with the bottles leaking everywhere, but this time, I couldn't get it to stop leaking! And this happened again with the next bottle a few hours later! It was so frustrating! Luckily I brought 1 "Nurser" and that one didn't have any problems.
Well, so far we were doing fine! A few disappointments, but not a big deal. We had a nice picnic lunch, and continued on our course. Well, because of the road construction there is only one road in order to get in/out of the park from the West or South entrances (the closest ones to us). So, we are driving on this road, and all of a sudden everyone is completely stopped! I guess somehow some yellow paint that is used to paint the lines on the road was spilled and traffic was completely stopped until a crew could come in and clean it up. Remember, this is the main highway of the park, so it's fairly crowded and everyone is stopped! Well, an hour later we finally are able to go again. Now, that may not be too bad, but remember we have a 9 month old little boy who doesn't enjoy spending a ton of time in his car seat, and we were near a bunch of flying ants that seemed to attack us the second we stepped out of the car.
Things weren't too bad after that. We had some fun moments (which I'll talk about later, in order to end on a positive note) and then planned to stop by "Artist Point" at the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone" so Glenn could try some sunset photography. We got to the point, and G got all set up as we waited in anticipation for what seemed like an awesome sunset. We waited, and became disappointed because the sunset seemed like a big flop. Glenn packed up all his equipment and we walked back to the car, and then for a couple minutes the clouds turned a beautiful color, and he missed a beautiful opportunity for some landscape photography. Bummer!
We then started the journey out of the park and home. Well, about 20 miles later (remember, on the only road that could take us to an exit) almost in exactly the same spot as before, we came to completely stopped traffic. AGGGHHH! This time, apparently there was an accident and we didn't move for 2 1/2 hours!!! By this time, there was a grumpy, tired, baby who couldn't fall asleep in his car seat if the car wasn't moving. He was a trooper though, and didn't complain as long as he was out of the car seat, but we had to try and entertain him while we just waited. (The whole trip home should have only taken 2 1/2 hours max from that point in the park.) Then, when we finally started moving again, we decided to take the South exit out of the Park and drive home via Jackson, WY, hoping to take some sweet night full-moon shots of the Tetons on the way. Well, the South entrance to Yellowstone is at the border of Grand Teton National Park, and 5 miles after we left Yellowstone we came to completely stopped traffic again! This time there was road construction in Grand Teton Park. That was the worst wait, because by this time it was past midnight, and Nico woke up as soon as the car stopped, and wouldn't stop crying. Then, it took us twice as long as we expected to finally get to Jackson because of all of the construction. They had to actually guide us through the road work. So by now, it's 2 am and we are starting to wonder if we can make it the final 1 3/4 hour drive home, with Nico crying one of the saddest cries I've ever heard. I start trying to look up hotels on Glenn's phone while he attempts a night shot of the Tetons, but of course it's all hazy so you can barely see them, and the picture didn't turn out. The internet on the phone kept freezing because the service wasn't very good, and the only hotel I was able to get a hold of had their cheapest room starting at $150. We were like, forget that! I finally got Nico calmed down by loosening his diaper and letting him chill for a while, and then we finally made it home at 4:30 this morning. Luckily the little guy slept in a bit this morning and then took 2 nice long naps so I could catch up on some sleep. All I can say is that we are glad to be done with that trip!
Even though I've already written a novel, I'll end on a few of the positive parts of our day: Coming withing a couple feet of a bison (he walked right next to the car), Glenn finally being able to see the petrified tree, Lamar Valley where we got to see Antelope, and the fact that at least Nico didn't puke up any of his food! Hopefully if you go to Yellowstone you will have a better experience than we did!