6-30 Food for thought

More driving today, going through Omaha, Des Moines, and Cedar Rapids. Can’t say there’s much to take photos of out here, mostly field and plain. The major cities are pretty small. While not exciting, these states are feeding the nation. Thank you, Middle America. 

This is our final night of camping until we get home. It’s bittersweet, but I guess we need to be re-acclimated to society at some point.

6-29 Arts and eats

A lot of windshield time was clocked today, cruising through Grand Island, Lincoln, and seeing the odd car art sculptures of Carhenge outside Alliance, NE. It was a pretty interesting use of old vehicles and their parts to make a pseudo-Stonehenge, a big salmon, dinosaur, flowers, and other arrangements. 

We had a feast of a dinner at an Olive Garden in Lincoln, using to their full potential a pair of gift cards I have been stashing for such an occasion. We even gussied up for the event by putting pants on instead of gym shorts. It’s the little things.

6-28 Rock On

We covered a lot of ground today, both above and below the earth’s crust. On our way to Mt. Rushmore, we saw the work-in-progress that is the Crazy Horse Memorial. Not a whole lot happening there other than his face so far, but it should be pretty epic when it is done.

Mt. Rushmore looked as iconic as all the pictures make it out to be. It is pretty inspiring to see four giant heads carved into the side of a mountain. 

From there we went underground, visiting the Wind Cave National Park not far down the road. This is the 5^th longest cave system in the world, consisting of around 130 miles of known passages and still finding more.  We took one of the five offered tours and got to see a lot of the most prominent traits of the cave system, such as box work, frost work, and popcorn.

Frost work

Box work

Popcorn

The Badlands were our home for the night. The whole drive there looks like simple prairie until it drops off into the rock and mud formations that created the formations. It was like driving through an alien landscape. I did hear one man say that they filmed the asteroid scenes of the movie Armageddon at the Badlands. Peering out at the landscape we spied a female bighorn, one of only about 100 at the park that are being reintroduced to the area. Sadly, we didn’t see any rattlesnakes (sorry Eli).

Today we officially saw every US license plate, finally spotting Kentucky after a long search. We also got 5 Canadian provinces checked off as well. High-fives all around.

6-27 The High Life

A lot travel today, plowing through Wyoming and into South Dakota. We came across a clutch campground with a pool, showers, TV, wifi, rabbits, ample plugs for us to cook our oatmeal in the morning, and all at an affordable price! It's been a good night.

6-26 The moose is loose!

Big hike today. Eight miles around Jenny Lake was long, but pretty flat and easy. We also went off on a small tangent to see Hidden Falls.The water here is crystal clear, the rivers and lakes look like glass. Beautiful day in a beautiful environment.

 

Comin' hot!

On our trail, a group of people were walking rather hurriedly toward us with cameras out. Again, our scene. Not far behind them was a young bull moose, trudging forward in our direction. We resorted to guerrilla tactics, snapping photos and dropping back until finally the moose diverted his path to chow on some leaves. While he didn't have a rack, he did have 2 nubs, so that counts. Another good day.

6-25 Hello again, snowcaps

Back to the Rockies! Grand Teton National Park is essentially connected to the south end of Yellowstone, a very short drive. We got a campsite inside the park no problem and explored the area; a 3 mile hike and some driving around. The Teton Mountains erupt right off of the lakes and rivers around the area, making for quite the sights. 

We had one mission for the day: find a moose. Lucky for us there is actually an area called Moose, so we knew where to go. After extensive searching, we left disappointed. But wait! As we were driving back, a large crowd of people were gathered with cars pulled over on the side of the road and tourists flocking with cameras. This was our scene. Exiting the car in a flurry, we saw our prize. A moose cow was munching away on some leaves with complete disregard to the ruckus around her. Her calf then emerged from the brush, a bonus to the unexpected sighting. 

She cheesed for me

As we were playing cards back at camp later that evening, a moose came wandering through our campsite. She first emerged not far behind the bathrooms and slowly meandered to about 20 feet behind our tents. Three moose in one day? Mission accomplished.

Literally right behind our tents

6-24 Nice marmot!

Old Faithful doing its thing

The early bird gets the worm and can snag a nice campsite. We got a spot reserved around 8 a.m. and explored Yellowstone more today. Most of it is by car, so it isn’t too strenuous to see a lot of stuff. Old Faithful delivered right on schedule (even though there is about a +/- 10 minute margin of error, I thought it was more regular than that). A lot of the stuff we saw was right on the giant sleeping caldera that is Yellowstone. Last time it blew, debris was shot over 240 cubic miles. Keep sleeping, Yellowstone. 

Firehole Lake

Bull elk

 We saw a good deal of animals during our stay here, getting uncomfortably close to some!

Come here, marmot!

Third time was almost the charm.

Enormous

6-23 Can't Win 'Em All

We got our first big storm last night as we camped in Idaho and found out that the tents leak a little. Our bodies were dry, but our stuff was wet. Not long after hitting the road, the right wheel started feeling funny. With some scrutiny we found the culprit: one of the five bolts that hold the wheel on had snapped. Three of the remaining four were loose…Tightening the bolts, we carried on to find the nearest garage to get the problem fixed, but not before losing the hubcap driving over a bridge. The garage didn’t have the right sized bolt we needed so we were stuck in Missoula, MT for a while. To remedy the whole situation, we walked over to the local IHOP, got Splashberries and Big Country Combos, and ate ourselves silly (as our excuse, we couldn’t get into the van to make our lunch! We were starving!). It rained heavily for the majority of the remaining drive. 

By the time the van was done and we got to Yellowstone it was pretty late. We were able to see a few things and get some pictures before searching for the only open campground which was full by the time we got there. It was another parking lot for us this evening.

Pronghorn (the fastest mammal in North America!)

Minerva Terrace hot springs