Day 6: Yellowstone part two

From: Yellowstone National Park

To: Missoula, MT

Waking up to 27 degrees got us up quickly. Heather made for the bathroom while Nathan dozed for a few minutes, or so he thought. Until, Dakota found a small gap in the tent zipper. She forced her snout through and before Nathan could put on his glasses, both dogs were roaming free the campsite area. Good morning!

Our first stop was at Artists’ Paintpots. It was another hotspot area with more hot springs and bigger mud pots. After this we reached the Virginia Cascades where, actually, we didn’t stop. You just drive along this small back road on the side of a cliff with no railing and view a waterfall.

Next was the highlight of the day, Yellowstone Grand Canyon. We spent several hours viewing the canyon and humongous waterfalls from different lookouts. And it was here that we finally saw just why this place is named “Yellowstone.” The canyon walls were in fact yellow with other shades of red volcanic rocks.

Need we say anymore.

We hiked like 17 miles (not really) down to get a great view of the lower falls. 17 miles back up and we were gasping for thin mountain air. At the next lookout Heather hiked an additional 3 miles when she took the wrong turn at a fork in the road after Nathan didn’t wait on her to go back to get her fleece leaving her to flip a coin as to which direction he had gone. Heather was mad (no worries Cynthia, Violent Destroyer did not blow up the mountain). Heather was mad. Arguing ensued and any romantic mood was chased away like wild turkeys from our first campsite. But how could anyone stay angry for very long in such a majestic place? 

Our final stop before leaving the park was Mammoth Hot Springs. This entire mountain is one big hotspot. The mountainside was composed of numerous hot springs that terraced beautifully all the way down the face. A lot of the surface was stark white due to the chemical composition of the water making our pictures look like it had snowed.

We waived goodbye to Yellowstone and a few cow elk on the side of the road at the North Entrance and headed north. During this stretch we caught a glimpse of some horned mountain sheep (we think) way up on a cliff side.

The North Entrance sits at the border of Montana. From there we drove through Livingston to Butte and finally to Missoula to find a hotel for the night. Butte (Nathan likes to pronounce it butt), MT was not that great. It was kind of like the ass-end of Montana, though it wasn’t as crappy as you’d think given its name. As soon as we entered, he all of the sudden had to go #2. That’s eerie. But, alas, he didn't. Some might call him anal, but he didn't want to use a public restroom.

Overall, Montana was beautiful, much like Wyoming. We drove between mountains almost the entire time, but the road always sat in a valley. Apparently, in MT it’s not news for a whole heard of elk or buffalo to set up shop in someone’s front yard. We’ve had perfect weather, but while driving through MT we saw a storm happening over a mountain and on the other side, but it never crossed over to us. It was neat watching the mountains contain the clouds. Afterwards it did cast a rainbow over on our side, which was beautiful.

Coming soon, Seattle, boarder check cavity searches and Vancouver. And yes, Cynthia, we are prepared with our Kraft dinner and hatchet!

Day 5: Welcome to the Rockies: Yellowstone part one

From: Cody, WY
To: Yellowstone National Park, WY

We left the hotel and drove down the road to a Walmart with the best back drop view of any Walmart in the country. For, Cody, WY is nestled at the foot (or should I say, hairy big toe) of the Rocky Mountains. We drove through a little tunnel and on the other side were surprised by a lake completely surrounded by jutting mountains. We continued on, jaws gaping, till we entered Yellowstone National Park.

Entering at the East Gate, we began our journey further up into the mountains. We got excited when the ranger at the gate warned us of very active wildlife on the roads. And before we knew it, we almost ran into a buffalo walking the wrong direction in our lane of traffic. So, naturally, Jayne stepped aside for Mr. Buff.

From the East Gate, the first big point of interest we came to was Yellowstone Lake which was breath taking and massive. At any given point, the distance from one side to the other is in terms of miles. One of the first things we noticed was how perfectly clear the pristine water was. Like looking through glass. And as one might expect, it was freezing cold.

The first site we stopped at was Steam Boat Point, because we noticed the ground was smoking. Reading the info plaque we learned that it was not in fact smoking but actually steaming. Yellowstone National Park sits on a volcano. Miles underneath the surface there is a magma reservoir. Ground water seeps its way down becoming super heated and then rises with great force to the surface and breaks through thin crust areas all over the park. These break-throughs are seen in the form of hot springs, mud pots, steam vents and geysers, all of which we would see along our journey.

On we drove  through Sedge Bay, Mary Bay, Fishing Village and Lake Village till we found a quaint little spot for lunch at Bridge Bay that we were able to claim all to ourselves. We filled our bellies on the shore of the most beautiful lake we’ve ever seen. Our picnic table sat on a cliff almost 40 feet straight up from the water, and we enjoyed watching otters swimming and playing in the water. They were cute!

Driving on we stopped at West Thumb (huge cover in lake) geyser basin on the west side of the lake where we walked the boardwalk seeing dozens of hot springs and mud pots. Mud pots are rather large boiling mud pits. Mud splashes and squirts up getting thrown in all directions. The hot springs are crystal clear pools of scalding hot water boiling up from under ground. They often display a different array of colors due to the different bacteria present in the water. It was here that we figured out that Yellowstone was much more than what we’d expected. We anticipated a giant beautiful forest with sights, wildlife and hiking. We had not realized the whole volcano deal with active hot spots and geologically volatile landscape.

There were parts of the ground you couldn’t walk on for danger of opening another steam vent and burning yourself.

Also, at West Thumb we watched another family of otters playing and catching fish in the lake near the area where hot spring water flows into the lake warming it slightly. They were cuties! Playful, they looked like a cross between a huge ferret and a dog. 

We drove through Craig Pass, which goes over the continental divide at a wopping elevation of 8262 feet (beautiful views) and stopped next at Kepler Cascades. This was the first of several waterfalls. It, like everything else, was beautiful.

From there, it was onward to Old Faithful. As we drove through the parking area the famed Geyser erupted leaving us about 90 minutes to kill before the next big show. We toured the visitor’s center and gift shop, walked the dogs then took a seat.

Watching the eruption was cool and surprisingly quiet. It was beautiful, and we learned that enough water is expelled each eruption to fill at least 150 bathtubs.

Leaving Old Faithful we got caught in yet again a second buffalo jam. This time, there were lots of cars held up, but not for too long. Dozens of Bison dominated the four-lane road for about 5 minutes until we squeaked through. We traveled on to the Midway Geyser Basin where we saw a hot spring called the Grand Prismatic Spring, which was approximately 200 feet in diameter concealed mostly in steam.

The area, nonetheless, was impressive. Along with several other springs, all the water from this basin flowed into a nearby river.

Next, were the Fountain Paint Pots. Another boardwalk took us past a rather large mud pot, several steam vents and a geyser which was erupting continuously. We never saw it quit. At this point the sun was setting so we, like lazy buffalo, moseyed on our merry way to our campsite for the night in Madison. Throughout the day the temp was warm, upper 50s. That night, by Jayne’s account it dropped to 27 degrees. We managed to bundle and stay mostly warm through Nathan woke up cold several times through the night. Dakota and Lola roughed it underneath towels and our ski jackets on top of their dog bed pillows.

Day 4: Buffalo

From: Custer State Park, SD

To: Cody, WY

Rise and shine! We slept well all bundled up last night and got up early to get the day going. First things first, we had breakfast and packed up camp. During this process Heather happened to look over and see that Lola was very fixated on something to the point of quivering. She wanted something and wanted it bad. Low and behold some wild turkeys had wandered into the empty site right next to ours. Lola only needed the opportunity and it was gonna be over for some birds.

Turkeys camping one site over

After packing up we decided to journey through Custer state park in hopes of seeing some wildlife. As we journeyed through the 20-mile Wildlife loop we saw prairie dogs, fox, dozens of deer, and, well, a few buffalo. Until……..the buffalo jam!!!!!!

It's s little known fact that buffalos don't use their blinkers

There is a herd of about 1000 buffalo that roam through the park and we just happened to run into a pack of over 100 of them. They were just chillin’, eating grass, blockin traffic not caring one bit that anything needed to get past. At one point we were afraid that one or two of them would walk right into Jayne, because they didn’t seem to notice, or at least care, that we were present. Fortunately they missed us by a few inches.

Just as we were nearing the end of the jam there was one lone buffalo standing in the road looking right at us, and the sound of old western songs and tumble weeds started playing in the distance……Jayne vs. buffalo…..eww-e-eww-e-eww. Well fortunately, all ended well and the buffalo got out of the way, but it was an intense moment nonetheless.

After our buffalo adventure we headed toward town to get gas and upload our fabulous blog posts. On our way away from Custer and Mount Rushmore we passed through Crazy Horse, a town so named for the large stone carving of an old Indian chief’s face who was named (you guessed it) Crazy Horse.  

You gotta ask yourself one question..."Do I feel lucky?" Well do ya, buffalo? 

Then it was off toward Yellowstone. We soon crossed the boarder from SD into WY, which was beautiful. Nothing but rolling hills, giant plateaus, and mountain ranges in the distance. The original plan was to make it to the camp ground in Yellowstone that we were going to, but as it got dark we decided to stop in Cody, WY for the night. We wanted to drive through the Rocky's and into Yellowstone in the daylight.

Driving from Buffalo, WY to Cody, WY we crossed the Bighorn Mountains. It was dark, but you could tell that it was beautiful. The road itself was so much fun to drive. It hugged the mountains and curved gently and smoothly with this smaller yet wondrous mountain range. At the foot of the mountains the temperature was approximately 50 degrees. Crossing the mountain pass it got down to 30 degrees, then back up to about 48 on the other side. After this stretch, we decided not to drive anywhere in the dark, because we know we missed out on some awesome scenery in the Big Horn mountains. Plus, we should have seen them, because Jayne is a Big Horn edition. Sorry Jayne. 

Videos

We've taken a few videos along the way so far. They tend to give a better feel of places we've been.

Here's a 360 degree shot of some of the Badlands.

Here's a clip of driving through the Badlands, it's gives a little better perspective than the photos.

Here's us approaching our first buffalo jam. Dakota and Lola wanted a buffalo so bad!

Hope you enjoyed. More videos and pics coming. Just keep checking back.

We're having a blast. We hope you are too!

Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore was incredible.

Black Hills

Mount Rushmore is situated in the Black Hills National Forest which was beautiful. Best we can figure they are called that because they look black from a distance the same way our Blue Ridge mountains look blue.

As you approach the monument you walk through this parade of state flags. On each pillar were four flags and an engraving noting when each state joined the union.

We of course took pics with the best states represented.......totally didn't realize Alaska had only been part of the union for 61 years.

"It felt so historical."  -Heather

Nathan wanted to show his belly button in this pic but Heather wouldn't let him.

He decided to just represent our home state by keeping his shirt on.

This was an amazing view of the amphitheater below the monument.

Watch out for falling loogies! 

This handy work of the late Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) was truly remarkable.

Every moment was breath taking

Badlands!

The Badlands were awesome!

Bad ass!

Here are some more pics of the incredible views and places we got to see and walk on.

Sometimes, there aren't words to describe

Saw a horned sheep below this railing

Numerous hiking trails through this terrain

Heather, looking bad in the Badlands

Nathan, in a Badlands' sunset

Beautiful views abound

You can see most of Eastern South Dakota beyond these cliffs

Day 3: Amazing Creation

From: Chamberlain, SD

To: Custer State Park, SD

We slept well last night at a Howard Johnson, had a lovely full breakfast, and got on the road…later than planned (no surprises there). 
SD landscape became much better after Chamberlain, before which was just more corn farms. Chamberlain sits on the Missouri River and crossing the river is like crossing into a whole new place. There were bulging hills and moo-cows spotting the country side.

We found a good ol’ truck stop with a machine shop and got Jayne a much needed oil change. SD is very windy. So windy, in fact, that it wrecked our gas mileage creating tons of extra drag. When I mentioned the wind to a gas station attendant, she looked out side and said, “It’s not windy. Heck, the trees ain’t even moving.”

We must note that part of the scenery included dozens of billboard advertisements for Wall Drug—a store to satisfy all your needs. Every few miles there was a sign advertising something else that Wall Drug could provide. From homemade donuts and cherry pie, to free ice water, a pharmacy, .5 cent coffee, a museum, a reptile exhibit and the moon, Wall Drug had it all…supposedly. But, we’ll never know, because though we drove by we never went in. (Anti-climactic, I know.)

Following a solid tip from our old Michigan-born neighbors we made plans to stop at some place called the Badlands. We’d heard of them before, but had no idea what they were. Turns out, this was one of the most amazing places we’ve ever been. SD is flat. The Badlands are the antithesis of flat. They’re not, strictly speaking, mountains or hills.

But then again, they are. They are jagged edged cliffs that are hilly and mountain-like. They divide an upper and lower plain. It looks like half of SD sunk hundreds of feet. This ridged, craggy, cliffy, prickly, bulbous, spiky terrain is the result. We drove through them for about 20 miles. There are lookouts and places to pull over to ogle at the scenery all along the way. There are a number of hiking trails and campgrounds. We got to enjoy some wildlife: some kind of horned mountain sheep, dozens of prairie dogs, some kind of cousin to the deer, and a chipmunk thang. The Badlands were, by far, Nathan’s favorite part of the day.

Onward, we drove, wishing we had more time, to the next big scene in our adventure: Mount Rushmore. As we expected, Mt. Rushmore was incredible. Though we’ve scene the great carvings in pictures and films dozens of times, the sight is a completely different experience first hand. At one point, we both confessed and chuckled that it was smaller than we’d imagined (butter). Walking the Presidents’ Trail (where I think a scene from National Treasure 2 was filmed) was fun. Heather even got a little choked up for the old stars and stripes, over the gravity of what these four presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln) stood for and accomplished in our country's history. We spent about 2 hours, which is about all the time you could spend there unless you love ice cream and gift shops. (Don’t get me wrong…we both love ice cream). 

Seeing so much of God’s creation and such impressive works of a stone sculptor was awe inspiring and moving. This was almost too much to take in for one day.

After the glorious mountain, we drove along the coolest road to Custer State Park. Winding like a good old NC mountain road, this one three times took us through single-lane tunnels carved out of solid boulders. This 12-mile trek lasted about 40 minutes. We set up camp at the first campground we came to and tried not too freeze. This was the first time the weather became cold. The camp host said it was in the low 30s which I’d believe, because we had to bundle up to stay warm.

Check back for the next post when Lola almost got in a fight with a wild turkey, and Jayne stood toe-to-tire with a buffalo!