We finally made it to Yellowstone by about 6 PM I think. We found Danny and some of the others in the I loop, and found out that Dad hadn't arrived yet, and no one knew where our campsites would be. We knew we were going to end up in the H loop from Danny sneaking a peak at the screen, but didn't know what site. So we drove to the H loop and found Jared and Anna. We hung out with them for a bit until Anna decided enough was enough, we needed to figure out where our sites were so we could start setting up.
So Anna and Rebekah drove me to the main office. Now they normally don't do this. But we had pregnant Anna holding crying Rebekah. It was raining or hailing depending on the moment, and cold. We were shivering, and trying to explain missing parent, having to get camp set up, etc. They let Anna check in for Dad and purchase all of his sites. Wouldn't you know it? As soon as we got done Dad drove up! We should have just waited a bit. But it all worked out.
I had two sites across the road from each other, and I was the closest site to the restroom. Good for my little girls, but very noisy.
The site closest to the restroom we put up our big tent for me and Peter, the playpen for the baby, and a "room" for Mandy and Stephanie. It worked out great. There was room for all of our stuff and room to change and dress.
Across the road we had the "girls tent" with Sara, Megan and Julia, and a small Eureka Zeus for Jeffrey. That site was bigger so we also had our camp chairs, changing room/shower, and we set up our food there.
It took until after dark to get everything situated, kids fed, and so on. By the time we had set up, the three little girls had their jammies on and were playing in our tent. They're not exactly quiet, but I wasn't worried about it because quiet hours aren't until 10 PM and I wanted them to get their giggles out.
A little after 10 I headed over to our tent to check on them in person, and noticed a guy outside the tent. He was shaking the tent and yelling at them and asking where the responsible adult was. I got between him and the tent and (calmly, yea!) told him I was the responsible adult. He rattled on about how noisy they were and how he was going to get the ranger to kick us out and so on. It's not all exactly repeatable here, but you get the idea! I asked him to go get the Ranger, told him no one can make any child be silent and asked him to leave. He did.
The amazing thing is that the kids actually calmed down after that and fell asleep. Even the baby wasn't up too much later. The ironic part though was that he snored all night long! I knew exactly when he fell asleep, woke up, and went back to sleep. Goodness. Fortunately he left that morning.
I couldn't sleep until 1 AM (that was the loudest camp ground I've ever stayed in!) and was up at 6:30 because of all of the noise. I hung out with Anna and made breakfast at the other site to avoid the ornery dude. Fortunately they packed up and left before my kids woke up. Some people though. Every other site was up late that night, and louder than we were. I don't thing anyone was sleeping that night.
The other nights were better. The campground got a little quieter, the next neighbors weren't as bad, and the kids adjusted well.
Well, except the last night when grandpa was tired and wanted to go to bed and my oder kids were up playing war. He had to go over there and tell them to be quiet.
It is hard to explain to kids that they have to be quiet when the drunk poker players next to them weren't exactly being quiet. But we were the ones next to grandpa's site, not the loud poker players. So yea.
I was just glad to get out of there.
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