More vacation update "BEING THERE" Days 4-6. Not for the faint of heart or lightweight stomach.

Day 4. Tuesday. We got going and into Yellowstone park. THIS is what e came here for after all! We cruise in and saw Elk and Buffalo, and Eagles, and MORE Buffalo, and MORE Buffalo, and Elk and More ELK. The kids were enthralled, and we snapped dozens of pictures. We saw gorgeous landscape. We visited the theraml area called Paint pots in the upper Geyser Basin. We visited Old Faithful and saw it shoot up. We had the most delightful treat of Huckberry (and separately, strawberry cheesecake) ice cream on the veranda of the Old Faithful Inn on the hot day.

From here on out the kids had a great day, but with all the driving, they kept asking if there were there yet... as if to think with all this driving shouldn't we be there yet?

Somewhere after Craigs Pass I started getting sick. But we kept on. Until I actually got sick... on the side of the road. Up came the ice cream. But we kept on. We saw Yellowstone Hotel, we saw Yellowstone Lake and the gorgeous mountains across the water. We stopped on got a smal lunch. I ate one pickle slice and 4 sips of Sprite. Then we got back in the car and began again... only to stop and see a herd of Elk... and toss up the pickle and sprite. Then we kept going and came upon the mud volcanos. (and I lost the water I'd been drinking.) Then we kept on to Fishing Bridge and saw White Pelicans. Mike walked the boys through the amazing bird museum and down to the beach. We kept on and went up to the "Grand Canyon" of Yellowstone. I figured it was a once in a lifetime chance we better get to it. Let's just say, the Canyon was beautiful and awing.... and one of the stones on the path is a bit more yellow than before after being painted with my stomach's contents. All the while I was at it, Caleb kept saying "mommy, stop that, stop that mommy, people are looking at you".
And by now, my back is starting to hurt.
So we finally decide to head back... it's about 56 miles. We made a few "emergency" stops were I left more stomach DNA markers. The kids were anxious to get home and get out of the truck. They wanted to play on the playground, watch their movie and eat. Mike made dinner. I crawled to bed in pain. I was having strong unidentifiable pain, and not just in my back, I was shaking, nauseas and peeing with a strong content of blood. I took some pain killers, prayed and basically said good bye to the kids. (I wish I was just being melodramatic. The pain was strong and not just in it's usual places, coupled with blood, and vomitting, I was very concerned). I told the kids I loved them, was proud of them. I told them that I loved Jesus, if I ever left I'd go to Heaven and would watch from there and my biggest desire was that they always love Jesus too. And to be happy because God created joy for a reason. Then it was bed time... but because of the pain killers I couldn't actually find rest.

Day 5, Wednesday.... Pain woke me up, so I stayed in bed and let everyone else sleep. I was feeling too sick still to even attempt taking medicine.. I did't want to just puke it up. A couple hours later everyone else was up. I barely kept down some food, took pain killers. Passed a couple tiny kidney stones (although not the big'uns I'm expecting) and got the kids breakfast and we headed into the park again. We did the upper loop, Mammoth area etc. I took pain killers like clockwork. The kids liked seeing more animals, but they ached to get out of the car. At Mammoth, Caleb took the out of the car time to the extreme... and rolled in the grass/weeds (although we didn't know it at the time). 20 minutes later, he says he is itchy. So we actually take our eyes off the mammoth hot springs and Liberty Cap and look at him... he's covered in hives! Huge welts 2-3 inches across, all over his torso. We strip his shirt off and head to the Mammoth General store. We get Cortaid and Calamie and a new shirt for him. We lotion him up all over and dress him in a new shirt (the old was very obviously covered in spine/pollen). We hope that this is enough to solve the problem. And we continue on. We head over to the tower area, then down to Canyon Village and back home again several hours later. We fewer animals on this loop, except at mammoth and the ever present Buffalo. We arrive home with time to let the kids play on the playground, Mike grilled up drumsticks, we hosed ourselves down with DEET again and ate outside. BBQ sauce and kids don't work well inside the trailer. When it was time to shut it down for the night. Mike took Caleb over to get a shower and get all the pollen off of his body. 20 minutes after they were back, Caleb was Hiving up again, welts everywhere including near his eye. We didn't know what he rolled in that would come back (and Mike thought his own hands were beginning to itch, so what would also be contagious?) I gave him a Claratine. We ended up stripping Caleb down and Mike stood him in the bathtub and rubbed his entire body down with Cortaid and Calamie, we wrapped Caleb in a towel and put him to bed that way with a whole bunch of prayer.

In the middle of the night. Joshy ended up waking with an attempt to cry. His throat was so sore he couldn't really cry, and his nose was running, and he was raspy. He was crying and couldn't tell me why. I was scared that he was having an allergy to something too and he would stop breathing. So I prayed over him alot. I didn't get much sleep because I would jump up just to check on him to make sure he still was breathing. Being in pain still didn't help either.

I actually prayed Lord, keep up from having a fire, that's the only thing that hasn't happened to us yet.

Day 6 Thursday. A little better today. However, about what a prayed against last night... fire. Well, Mike was trying to fix a fuse that had blown (the one that connects the water/sewer tank indicators), and it started throwing current and arcing. I actually saw blue zapping current shoot out, and I'm sure Mike felt it. Have you ever wanted to just toss up your hands and let Murphy's law take over and let God take you home. Well, that did get resolved, without actual use/need of a fire extinguisher.

Caleb's rash was gone complete (although we haven't washed the Calamine off YET). He woke up with a dried coating of Calamine lotion that makes him look very pale, almost humorously so.
Joshy is still sporting a runny nose. But he isn't coughing anymore nor complaining of a sore throat.
We headed over to the Grizzly Wolf/bear center. It was a great time, and as it turns out our only opportunity to see bears and wolves. They were doing some unusual "container" testing, letting the bears do their worst trying to get into various containers to see which are really bear-proof. They fed them while we were there too. The kids really liked the playground there too.

Then we walked a little in town and then headed back into the park for some off the beated path roads. We made it as far as Old Faithful again before we headed back for more time in town, more time on the playground, a movie at the trailer and dinner. A way more relaxing day, without stomach fireworks and well managed pain.

The kids are looking forward to Jellystone tomorrow. And I think they will enjoy the pool there too. I'm looking forward to a more relaxing pace for the last leg of our trip.

I'll post pictures and update more later. Hope you're all doing fine.