Adventure Starts Here.
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The kids are sorry our adventure is over. So are their parents. Mike Sitzman, Hannah and Ethan’s dad, has had a real vacation—not often the case when kids are part of the equation– because, “The guides facilitated 100 per cent of the experience. I didn’t have to worry about where to park or having water… They even brought our suitcases to the rooms and got us checked in.” That’s not counting how much knowledge they shared.
The park is packed with families — especially around Old Faithful (just one of the park’s 300 geysers) and in the new children’s discovery area at the Old Faithful Visitor Center. The National Park Service says the vast majority of visitors don’t get more than a quarter-mile from the road though only about 3 percent of the vast park can be seen from that vantage point. That was why we opted to let Austin-Lehman lead the way.
Welcome to perhaps America’s greatest natural zoo— Yellowstone National Park with 67 species of mammals, 322 species of birds, 6 species of reptiles, 4 species of amphibians where the kids—my nine-year-old cousin Ethan Sitzman and his six- year-old sister Hannah have been naming the wild life as we go…Betty and Bobby Eagle…Oscar Osprey…Brett Bison…. And today we spot bear!
We were camping in a wilderness site on Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park and had spent the morning kayaking, stopping in a meadow full of wildflowers to fish, fly a kite and catch frogs. The wildflowers were gorgeous– purple (lupine), blue (columbine), yellow (buttercups), red (Indian Paint Brush) and white (Elk Thistle. And the kite was certainly fun, brought along by our intrepid Austin Lehman Adventure guides Matty Kirkland and Katie Gugliotta, who also brought a football to toss and gave Ethan and six-year-old Hannah some lessons in rock-skipping.
Certainly we could tour Yellowstone on our own but Austin Lehman has been guiding families in the vast park for 25 years and this is an opportunity to get away from the hordes of tourists (up more than 10 per cent last year from 2009 with 3.6 million visitors) and experience the park with those who know it well. Sadly, the majority of visitors don’t get more than a quarter of a mile from the road when there are thousands of hiking trails in the park.
Ten seconds of sheer terror or the most fun you’ve ever had. It’s all a matter of perspective. We’re at Big Sky Mountain Resort in Big Sky Montana at the edge of the first Zip line of the morning. Did I mention I’m supposed to fly across 425 feet—60 feet above the mountain tops at 25 miles per hour? No sweat says my young cousins nine-year-old Ethan Sitzman and his six-year-old sister Hannah, who are geared up, like I am, with safety harness, helmet and carabineers that will attach us to the cables. I’m told they are so strong they could hold the weight of a small car but I’m still nervous.
It’s easy to see why Juno the Beluga is a star here at Mystic Aquarium as well as a YouTube sensation— “dancing” to a Mariachi Band. He’s a growing boy, just like Jason and Enesi, the two 12-year-old boys who have left New York’s inner city, courtesy of the Fresh Air Fund to spend a week with us. We wanted to show the boys a place they’d never been and somewhere quintessentially New England, since they are spending 10 days in Connecticut, and what better place than Mystic?
This is the first morning of our guided trip to Montana and Yellowstone, arranged by Montana-based Austin Lehman Adventures, which has been guiding visitors to Yellowstone and beyond for more than two decades—several hundred families a year. The company sends adventurous families around the world but Yellowstone remains their signature trip and the Museum of the Rockies is a great place to start.
Watch this video on Foxnews.com of Eileen being interviewed about her recent trip to the Arctic with Lindblad Expeditions on the National Geographic Explorer.
The next time you’re thinking about hiring a private soccer coach, more violin lessons or a new video game, take the kids for a walk in the woods instead. Inject a little nature on your next vacation too, even if you’re heading to New York City (how about a long walk through Central Park?) or Orlando (get up close and personal with the manatees, or go fishing). You’ll all be the better for it. …
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