Day 51 - Devils Tower

Saturday, July 30, 2016

Posted from: Devils Tower, WY - Devils Tower KOA

Miles driven: 536

Total trip miles: 9,312

We are changing our plans for the day. Matt decided he would rather drive all the way to Devils Tower from West Yellowstone in a single day. We had planned to split it into two days. That is a looong day of travel, but it gives us two days in the Black Hills area instead of just one.

We took a family vacation to the Black Hills, South Dakota area four years ago, but we did not drive up to see Devils Tower. It was definitely on the list this time. So we took off across Montana and Wyoming.

We started out the day driving up scenic highway 89. It was beautiful. Montana really outdoes itself on this stretch of road. Along this road, we were following a small SUV. Unfortunately, at one point the SUV slammed on its breaks in order to perform a U-turn to go back and look at a scenic pullout. Matt. Locked. Up. All. Eight. Tires. It was ugly. We thought we were going to hit them. Matt laid on his horn to make sure they knew what was coming and could hopefully get out of the way. We had time to stop and tragedy was avoided. People...There is no beautiful view worth your life. Never do what he did. It took Matt several miles to recover.

This day was our last day to enjoy mountain views. We are driving back into the flat farmland of America. We all said good bye to the mountains.

Caleb likes to play a game when we are driving. Whenever you see a yellow vehicle you say "Score!" If you see a lot of yellow vehicles (think passing a Pizza Ranch with all of their yellow delivery trucks), you say "Score jackpot!" Even if we are driving to church or karate practice, he plays this game. Today, Caleb was sound asleep, and then as clear as could be he says, "Score jackpot!" He was apparently playing the game in his dream. It was so funny. 

Oh, and then this happened. We have traveled with eight gallons of fuel the entire trip. We had yet to use any of it...until today. The weather has been very mild the past few days, but now we were driving in west Wyoming on Interstate 90 and it was hot. To add to that, there was hill after hill...And very few gas stations. We had made it a point to fill up at every major stop we saw, but we hadn't seen one for quite awhile. We were 11 miles from the next truck stop in Gillette, WY, but we were low and concerned about vapor locking again. We had a long hill or two before we would see fuel.

So here we are. We pulled off and filled up.

When we finally arrived at the truck stop, I walked in to use the restroom and saw these. I mean, what?!? Where have these been our entire trip?? The west is not famous for grass. One of the things we noticed was the lack of grass, the missing smell of fresh cut grass, or walking barefoot in grass. This would have addressed all of our homesickness needs! Oh well. We would be back in the Midwest in a few miles. I'm sure grass is about to reenter our lives in vivid green color. We will be patient.

I took a picture of this beautiful cloud...and then it occurred to me that maybe we were headed into some weather. It looked like a beautiful storm cloud.

I pulled up radar. Hmm...We are the black dot. We were almost to our campground (actually just above the "90" in this screen shot). The pink ugly looking blob was headed directly for the campground.

We knew that if we beat the rain to the campground, we would have just a few minutes to set up before we got very wet. So we had a little family pep talk while Matt focused on getting us there as quick as possible without breaking any (or too many) laws. The pep talk went something like this: Okay guys. This is it. This is what we've been training for the past 50 days. This is the ultimate test of our speed, skill and agility. This is our Olympics! We can do this....GO TEAM! [Note: The amount of eye rolling this pep talk received could have been its own Olympic event.]

Here we are in the final stretch. Did I mention that our campground is 10 feet from the entrance to Devils Tower? And can I just say that the picture next to the word "random" in the dictionary is a picture of Devils Tower. It really is kind of crazy to see this tower looming straight up in the middle of nowhere.

Long story short. We made it. The team performed flawlessly. We had the camper set up (backed in, leveled, wheels chalked, unhitched, leveled again, jacks down, stairs out, plugged in, water hooked up, slide outs out) in 8 minutes. Is that even possible?! Heck yeah! The lightening was motivational...Oh and we still had time to run across the road and put away our neighbor's awning and lawn chairs. It let loose right as we finished.

This was the view out our window. It was kind of neat to stay so close. The movie Close Encounters of a Third Kind (Steven Spielberg) was filmed at our campground, so they show the movie each night at 8:00 on their patio. We opted out. It had been a long day of travel, and kids with nightmares did not sound like a good way to wrap up the trip.

What a day! Never a dull moment. 

Day 50 - Grand Teton National Park

Friday, July 29, 2016

Posted from: West Yellowstone, MT

Miles driven: 227

Total trip miles: 8,776

Driving down to Grand Teton National Park is on the agenda today. 

We started out early as it takes about two hours to drive through Yellowstone and arrive at the visitor center through the north entrance. 

We didn't stop and take this picture yesterday, so we stopped this morning. (Grace was braiding her hair in the car and hadn't finished yet, so she had to keep hold of her braid.)

The cool air of the early morning.

We decided to stop and turn in our Junior Ranger booklets at the Old Faithful visitor center. It had just opened and no one was there yet. #rockstarparking

This was the only park that required us to pay $3 for each kid to earn their badge. But they received a patch and a wooden 100th anniversary badge. Very cool! (Ignore the creepy guy in the background...it wasn't that cold.)

Grand Teton [I feel like I should note that Teton means nipple in French.]

We rounded the corner and expected to see the majestic mountains, but we saw this instead. A forest fire started by lightening on Monday. It had grown quite large at this point. They were not advising a lot of hiking or strenuous activity. The smell got pretty overwhelming as we drove closer. 

We stopped at the Jenny Lake Visitor Center to walk around and attend a ranger program. We were closer to the mountains now, so we could see them much better. 

The ranger program was about the type of rock in the park and how the mountains developed. It sounds like a dry topic, but the ranger did a great job using visuals and demonstrations. We were glad we attended this program. 

The kids finished their booklets and earned their Junior Ranger badges. 

The lake was peaceful and clear.

Us! (And another lady...hello Lady.)

This is what that picture would look like without us and Lady. 

We began the long drive back home to the campground. We stopped in town to pick up some groceries and cooked a great dinner and enjoyed a campfire. Oh! And I made homemade salsa! The grocery store had good tomatoes. They were the first we had this trip! It was a very relaxing evening. 

Day 49 - Yellowstone National Park

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Posted from: West Yellowstone, MT - 

Miles driven: 145

Total trip miles: 8,549

Yellowstone kind of sneaks up on you. We didn't do anything that we considered a hike, yet I logged just under 7 miles of walking in the park.

We started out driving through the west entrance and driving towards Old Faithful. We drove through the gates right at 7:00 am and there was a ranger there to check our pass. This was the earliest we have seen rangers at the fee stations in any park. 

Our first thought as we looked at the steam rising up from all over the park in the cool morning air was: How would you know if this place was on fire?? It looks like a lot of campfires. Obviously the smell was not a smell of fire, but it really drives home that this entire park is sitting in an active volcano. 

Here we are at Midway where the Grand Prismatic Spring is the star of the show. This is the colorful pool of water you see on many Yellowstone materials. It is second in popularity only to Old Faithful. But early morning is not the time to go. Too much steam.

The kids are standing by the Grand Prismatic Spring. We could see the colors, but it is better later in the day. Unfortunately you have just about no chance of parking here later in the day. The parking lot is really small.

We arrived at Old Faithful just in time to join a 90 minute ranger led hike around Geyser Hill. I can't say enough how much we appreciate these hikes. 

She led us to a good vantage point on the hike to watch Old Faithful erupt.

Family picture!

The Beehive Geyser doesn't erupt nearly as often as Old Faithful, but it usually erupts longer and higher. We happened to be fortunate enough to see it erupt at the end of our hike. They call over the ranger's radios when it is close. The hike was over, but the ranger flagged us down and told us to go check it out. 

All in all we saw 4 geysers erupt on our walk. Nice!

Caleb is ducking his head in this picture of Beehive erupting because it rains water on you.

Standing in front of the Old Faithful Inn. The lodge in the Disney movie, Planes Fire and Rescue was based on this lodge. 

It was like an indoor treehouse on the inside. 

The crows nest (top of the "treehouse") has been closed since an earthquake in the 50's. 

Caleb sat down at one of the desks to work on his Junior Ranger book.

Grace and Cameron worked on theirs too. 

We found enough things to do here that we decided to stay around until the restaurant at the lodge opened at 11:30. We were all hungry for a big meal! 

We got the best seat in the house in the corner with open windows all around and a nice breeze. 

The food was good and we all left very full and happy. 

If you have seen the Planes Fire and Rescue movie, then you know why we took this picture of the fancy white SUV in front of the lodge. (Hint: the superintendent is here)

Bison!!! 

They were everywhere and caused quite the traffic delay. 

This one was at least able to find a decent parking spot. 

Yellowstone Canyon. 

The kids and the lower falls. It is hard to see in this picture, but a stripe of water coming over the falls is bright green. Cameron called it Scope Mouthwash green and he is exactly right. It was that green! 

Boiling mud!!!! We stopped to walk around the Painted Pots area. The kids really wanted to see the bubbling mud. They were not disappointed. We stood and watched this for awhile. After we drove away, the kids said this was one of their favorite things they saw all day. 

Matt said this was a pretty view... So I snapped a picture. That is all.

We arrived back at the campground around 6:00 pm and decided we were very happy with our day. 

Day 48 - Traveling to Yellowstone

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Posted from: West Yellowstone, MT - Yellowstone West KOA

Miles driven: 382

Total trip miles: 8,404

Another travel day dawned bright and clear. It would be a long day with just under 400 miles, so we left as early as we could manage after our late night. We were on the road by 8:00. 

It was a relatively uneventful drive as we enjoyed mile after mile of beautiful Montana countryside. 

A couple observations:

1) Kids will naturally refuse to pronounce the town of Butte correctly. 

2) This is the time of year when bulls are allowed in with the cows...So Caleb naturally pointed out the "two cows fighting." "Boom! Take that!" he said. Matt was able to recover and dry his eyes while continuing to drive. I'm not sure how he did it... I was doubled over with laughter. 

It was also a strange sensation to drive through two mountain ranges. We did this for several miles. The mountains are so tall and big that you don't feel like you are moving. Beautiful, but a little discouraging when you have a lot of miles to travel. 

It was nice to finally start seeing these signs.

Beautiful countryside. Less mountains and more farmland. 

We were very thankful to not be in this situation. 

We arrived at the Yellowstone campground around 5:00 pm. I had suddenly developed a bad headache. My headaches are usually caused by dehydration or strong weather fronts (big change in pressure). This felt like the weather-kind. So I started gulping water, and then sure enough we heard thunder and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees. It rained a little on and off, but not enough to keep everyone inside. 

Matt and the kids played mini golf and tasted fudge at the fudge shop. 

We had dinner and got ready for our day in the parks tomorrow.