US Travel Journal Part 7

September 3, 2008

Another long day. Boy, am I tired! We only just stopped driving at about 8:30pm for the day. Let me try to recount on what happened today.

We awoke to cloudy skies. That was upsetting because we had planned on going back to Mt Rushmore to take morning pics cuz the monument looks the best with the morning light. We decided to try anyway and drove over to the monument after we dumped and refilled our propane at the campground. It was so cold there! I’m glad I have my snow jacket (yes, I get cold easily). :) At first, the sky was just covered in clouds, but it was so windy that it began to blow off and we got some really good pictures.

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After picking up a patch and some postcards, we left and headed to Crazy Horse Memorial. It wasn’t too far from Mt Rushmore so we arrived there around 11 am. It was $10 a person to get in!! We later found out that the funds go towards the building of the statue so that made us feel a bit better. We watched a short video on the sculptor and the making the monument. The statue wasn’t finished when the sculptor passed on, but he passed on his plans of the statue to his wife and today his wife and 7 children work on completing the statue. In the outside view area, there is a statue of a 1/34 scale model of what the large one is going to look like.

We decided to have lunch there at the Laughing Water Restaurant. I got a delicious taco salad on Native American pan bread and David got a buffalo burger. For dessert, we decided to try the Native American pan bread with honey. The food there was pretty good and the service was great. They even had free refills on iced tea!! :)


We left there around 2 pm and drove over to Wind Cave National Park. Here we also watched a short video about the Cave and the National Park. We went on a discovery tour at 3:30 pm into the cave. The cave was really neat. Since there is wind that flows in and out of the cave with changes in pressure from the outside environment, there were not any stalagmites or stalactites. Instead, there was a structure that looked like the inside of cardboard.

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The tour lasted about an hour. There was this one kid on the tour, a pudgy boy about the age of 12. He was there with his probably single mom. He was the most annoying kid and pretty dumb. The ranger would stop the group on several occasions and present the group with a bit of history or geologic facts about the cave. At the end of his discussion, he would ask if anyone had any questions. This dumb kid would always raise his hand and, not ask a question, but say some random sentence. One such occasion when we were still outside the cave (and David loves to repeat it back to me just to annoy me cuz he knows how much that kid irritated me), the kid raised his hand and when called upon, he said, “There’s a tumbleweed” and pointed to the bush. Ugh! At one point on the tour, his mom smacked him cuz he was misbehaving so much. At least it stopped me from doing it!! :P Anyway, back on the road again, we decided to take the scenic route back up to the town of Custer and along the way we saw a ton of wildlife. We saw bison, deer, antelope, deer and prairie dogs.




Once we got back to Custer, we noticed a huge storm heading our way and we were gonna have to drive right through the middle of it. The lightning was intense. It was striking all around us and instead of it being white light, it was purple light. One struck very close to the highway as we drove. We drove west towards Wyoming and once we crossed the border, the sun poked its head out of the clouds and made for some really nice pics.

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The rain continued off and on as we drove north to Moorcroft. We found a rest area next to the town to stop for the night. There’s huge light in the rest area which will make it fun to sleep through and guess what, there’s a train close by. Oh well. I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep through it. As long as there isn’t too much rain and wind. K, I can barely stay awake so I’m heading to bed. Night! :)


September 4, 2008

I finally got some good sleep last night. The train near the rest stop only woke me up one time and I blamed it on David in my half wakefulness (sorry sweetie). :P Funny thing happened this morning. We looked in the fridge and realizing that we had used all the milk last night for making dinner, we had nothing to make for breakfast. After some searching we found a box of blueberry muffin mix and luckily, it only needed water added to it for preparation. So we had muffins for breakfast. Ya, we’re running low on food. Our fridge was nearly empty this morning. We decided to head west to a town called Gillette, one of which we had passed through on the way to South Dakota. It was about 30 miles out of the way cuz we had planned on going north from Moorcroft to Devils Tower. But, we needed food, so after we finished breakfast, we headed to Gillette. We took the first off-ramp (which turned out to be the wrong one) and after some searching we finally found a grocery store. Now, we had food, so we made lunch in a nearby parking lot before heading back east towards Devils Tower National Monument.

Once off I-90, you couldn’t see the mountain until you were pretty close to it. Boy, was it a sight! You may ask, why Devils Tower? Well, Devils Tower was the mountain that Spielberg used in Close Encounters at the end of the movie, and the mashed potato scene. From I-90, it was about 35 miles to the park entrance. We drove up to the visitor center and took pics. I grabbed my binoculars out of the RV and looked for climbers. And there were many on the mountain, even with dark gray clouds approaching. There is a trail that runs in a loop around the mountain and it’s only about a mile in length, so after grabbing my umbrella and David his rain jacket, we took off on the trail. Devils Tower is actually green in color. Not what I expected at all!


As we got about halfway around the mountain, it started to rain pretty hard, so we headed back to the RV. It is supposed to rain for the next week there, so before we decided whether to stay the night, we checked out the campground. The campground has a view of the tower, but it is covered in trees so your view is partially blocked. David decided that he didn’t want to take night time pics, so after consulting the map and taking a break, we got back on the road. We made one last stop at the gift shop for some shirts, etc and hopped back on the freeway with our future destination of Yellowstone.

Outside of Buffalo, WY, we found a rest stop for the night and made some pizza for dinner. It was soooo good!! Especially with pepperchinis on it. We’re gonna stay here for tonight and head into Yellowstone tomorrow. I think a movie is in order after all the crazy driving we’ve been doing over the past few days. That’s all folks! Night!


September 5, 2008

Another night of restless sleep. Maybe tonight will be better. We are on our way to Yellowstone today. Not sure if we’ll make it all the way today, but we’ll try. :)

We headed west toward Buffalo, WY and then southwest to Worland. This was a very scenic drive. And the area looked as if it had gotten a fresh dusting of snow in the night. Along the way, there were various markers with information regarding the rock in the area and how old it was.

Once we got to Worland, we had the option of traveling north and west to Cody or we could travel south and then northwest to Cody. Along the route to Worland, I was telling David about a hot spring that was south of Worland in a town called Thermopolis. I thought just the name itself was pretty cool. David liked the name too so we decided to take the southern route.

Thermopolis wasn’t a very big city. The Hot Springs State Park was just outside the city itself. The Bath House still gives free soaks in the mineral springs so we decided to check that out. Unfortunately, the springs are sulfur ones and, for those of you who have smelled or handled sulfur before, it is not something that one would care to soak themselves in. Can you imagine reeking of sulfur for days?? Not something I would care to do. So, we gave that a miss and headed over to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center instead.

The Wyoming Dinosaur Center was pretty cool. They had tons of fossils and large replicas of dinosaur bones in their museum. There were even windows that gave a view into the lab where the paleontologists cleaned their finds, cataloged items and made molds. It was so dusty in the lab; it brought back memories of my digging days. :)

After the museum, we headed northwest to Cody. Cody was named after Buffalo Bill Cody. The town was actually a decent size. There was a ton of RV parks and hotels and modern conveniences such as Wal-mart, K-Mart, and Albertsons. We made a trip to Albertsons to pick up the few items that we were unable to find in Gillette such as TP. Can’t run out of that! :P

After we got back to the RV, it started to rain yet again. Oh well. We’re used to it by now! On to Yellowstone! David was getting pretty tired since we’ve been driving a lot these days, so we found a nice little campground just west of Cody right next to Buffalo Bill Reservoir. We have a wonderful view of the lake and snowcapped mountains. Hopefully the sky will be clear in the morning and we can get some good pics of the lake and of Yellowstone. That’s all for today. Gonna watch a movie and read my book for a change. Night!


September 6, 2008

Yay, a good night of sleep finally but why am I so tired? Maybe I need to catch up on sleep.

We’re headed to Yellowstone today. I can’t wait to see it! It’s been 20 years since I was here last and David’s never been. We left camp at a decent time and headed west to Yellowstone. In the pass to Yellowstone, it began to hail and the sleet. We saw snow on the highway yesterday and now sleet. The only road condition we haven’t driven thru yet is snow and ice.

Our first stop before the campground once inside the park was at a geothermal feature called Mud Volcano.

There is a 2/3 of a mile loop that you can walk and see the various geysers. The different sulfur pools smelled horrible! We were both light headed and me nauseous after we completed the walk.

We arrived at Canyon Village about 11:30 am and got a spot at the campground there without a problem. It’s so nice that it’s not the high season anymore. Funny thing happened while David was registering. I stayed behind in the RV while he registered. He was taking quite a while to come back from the office and I was beginning to wonder what the hold up was. Maybe there was a line? It turns out that the office is run by older people and there were also older people registering for a spot. And what do older people love to do? Talk and talk about nothing in particular and they take their time talking. I really do hope that I do not become that way when I get old. I mean come on! There’s a line! Oh well. We still got a spot so all was well. We located our spot and had some lunch. We have a back-in spot, but it was pretty easy to get into. During lunch, it began to hail. Great! Luckily, it didn’t last for very long. After lunch, we drove around the northern loop of the park. Yellowstone is so pretty! Sadly, a lot of it is burned so parts of it have an eerie stillness to it because of the fog in the mornings and the blackened burnt wood.

We made a quick stop at the Yellowstone Grand Canyon.

It was pretty steep and had a river at the bottom. We arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs around 2 pm. We got out and walked the wooden trail there too.

We noticed a herd of elk on the drive in (we had to park a significant distance from the village cuz the parking lots were too small to accommodate us) so we walked over to check them out.

There is a grassy area where they were grazing. The male slowly pushed the herd of females across the street and behind a restaurant there. Luckily they weren’t in danger of being hit by cars because there were about 8 rangers and volunteers stopping traffic. We took a bunch of pics, visited the gift shop and headed back to the RV. We were pretty tired at this point and just sat back and watched the scenery go past as we completed the loop and headed back to camp. We arrived just before 7 pm so we had time to do laundry before the center closed. It’s nice that so many places have laundry facilities these days. Now, if only the national parks had Wi-Fi. :P

It was dark when we got back to our camp spot. I got out with my flashlight and helped direct David in the spot. It’s hard to direct in the dark! After three tries, we got the RV parked without crashing into anything. It was too late in the evening to run the generator so we played a few hands of cards. Now, I’m off to bed. Night!


September 7, 2008

We were able to break camp early today and were on the road by 8 am. We headed down the southern loop to Old Faithful Geyser. We stopped first at Norris Geyser Basin and walked around the trail there.

The smell of sulfur was in the air. Yuck! One of the geysers even sprayed us with mist. Hopefully I won’t smell like sulfur later! The basin was covered in fog and gray clouds. Nothing grows in the geyser’s vicinity so there was an eerie feeling to this area too. But the geysers were really neat to look at. Seeing water boil in the pools was just awesome. Some were very colorful while others were muddy gray. And the steam vents! When the steam from the thermal vents was blown across the pathway into your face, it made you want to gag. After we walked both basins in the area, we continued south to Old Faithful.

We arrived at Old Faithful just after 11 am. The area has really changed in the last 20 years. You used to be able to park right next to the geyser but now, there are lodges and stores next to the boarded broadway that runs alongside Old Faithful. The parking lots are a good distance away now too. I didn’t mind all the extra parking space and the little bit of exercise. We waited for about a half hour for Old Faithful to erupt.

It gave a false eruption and then a real one shortly after. But, the eruption wasn’t that big and the wind shifted towards the bench we were sitting on so we got misted by the geyser. If it was a warm summer day, it would have felt good. But, it was cold today! So, being a bit wet on top of that didn’t feel good. At least we dried off rather quickly due to the strong winds. We decided to walk around the trails there and see the other geysers.

Halfway around, we found a bench with a great view of Old Faithful and some of the small surrounding geysers. We hung around here, waiting for Old Faithful’s next eruption. It took about an hour and 20 minutes for it to erupt again. It was worth the wait!

It shot up so high and the wind had stopped for a moment so the steam and the water shot straight up into the air.

After taking several pics and video, we were windblown and cold so we retreated back to the RV for warmth and lunch.

We were back on the road after lunch and heading out of the park through the southern entrance. It was difficult seeing everything in Yellowstone with an RV and only an RV. Many parking lots are small and don’t have room to park an RV. Also different points of interest around the loops only have a small turnout for a couple cars to park in. I can’t imagine how crowded the park must get in the summer. Having a car next time we travel here would be very helpful.

Next, we drove through Grand Teton National Park.

The park really isn’t that big. We were in and out of it pretty quickly. It did look like it would be good for hiking. We’ll have to come back in the spring sometime.

Next, we drove through Jackson Hole. It’s a cute town but very touristy. Even more so than Banff. So we didn’t even stop and continued south.

We stopped for the night at a rest stop in Wyoming on the border of Idaho. We’re both pretty tired from getting up so early and all of the driving today. We had dinner, relaxed with some Deadwood and now are off to bed. Good night! :)


September 8, 2008

Dang, that was a good night of sleep!! I told David this morning that I wanted to stay at this rest stop for days so I could continue to get some good sleep. :P

We’re headed to Utah today. My best friend Sara and her family live there so we plan on visiting with them today. We don’t have too many miles to drive today so it should be a relaxing day. We got on the road about 9:30 am. Along the way, we saw signs for jerky. We finally saw the little cart that was selling it. They had elk, buffalo and beef jerky of all different flavors. We got 3 different kinds of beef jerky and tried out one as a mid-morning snack.

We passed through various small towns such as Paris, Idaho and Fish Haven, Idaho. Just past here was Bear Lake. This lake is beautiful! We stopped at the marina and took some pics.

Then we continued on to Logan, Utah. We stopped here for lunch. A funny thing happened. They had a Jamba Juice!!! So, I had that for lunch. But, we needed to park somewhere other than the Jamba Juice parking lot. Across the street was a grocery store and the lot was pretty big. So, David make two rights, one at the light and then one into the driveway of the grocery store. I’m not sure if David just turned the RV into the parking lot too fast or the driveway was just really bumpy, but, on turning, the two cabinets that are above my head on my right side flew open and ALL the books and maps in it fell out on my head!! And it wasn’t all at once, it happened over like a 20 second interval. David was just rolling with laughter in his seat. I’m sitting there cracking up too, with my hands over my head trying to shield myself from further books, but telling him, “Hey, this isn’t funny!” Ya, so I’m okay and I got my Jamba Juice after that and David got a bagel from Einstein Bros Bagels. There was also a Taco Time in Logan and, since we haven’t tried it yet, we popped in there for a bit more food. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either. I tried a beef taco, but the tacos at Burger Basket in Phelan are way better.

From here, we headed onto Ogden. We had reserved a spot there earlier in the day at an RV park called Century Campground. They have full hook-ups and wireless so that was a nice treat for us. Haven’t had internet in like a week! I’m glad that we have hook-ups cuz it’s hot in Ogden!! We have the A/C on full blast. I was just freezing my butt off in Yellowstone yesterday! I can definitely tell that I’m back in the desert. We arranged to meet up for dinner with my friend Sara and her husband Jay at 6:30 pm, so we relaxed and played on the internet until they arrived at the campground. We’ve been craving Mexican since we’ve been away from California for awhile now. Sara knew of a good place in Ogden called Javier’s. It was pretty good. The chips and salsa was great and I really enjoyed my enchiladas. :) It was great to catch up with Sara and Jay, and David was finally able to meet them. After a long relaxing dinner, they drove us back to the RV and gave us some ideas of what to see while we are here in Utah. (Sara, it was great seeing you guys! We’ll have to visit again soon!) We’re going to check out Salt Lake City tomorrow since David’s never been there. Hopefully the weather is nice so we can get some good pictures.

That’s it for today. Sorry, I’ve taken my sweet time posting my blogs but I was hoping by delaying my posting that the pictures would be ready to post links in the blog. We’ve been so tired from all the driving that the last thing that David wants to do is work on pics once we’ve stopped for the day. I don’t blame him! So, I will repost these blogs with links and pics once they are available. Until then, I hope you all are enjoying reading about our travels around the states. And, until next posting, I hope you all have a good week! Night! :)