The long trek home but not quite done yet

After our run in with the Buffalo while leaving Yellowstone, we began our long drive back east. At this point we were somewhere around 1600 miles from home. I drove out of Yellowstone and

into Cody WY. The road out is long, narrow and winds around mountain after mountain of burnt Ponderosa pines. I remember this drive from 2004 and the land had just been on fire a few weeks before. The pines must take a long time re seed because there was very little new growth trees for miles.Anyways, we refueled and restocked our food in Cody and got back on the road to Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. As soon as we got there we set up our tent and made some lunch. The we made our way up to Mt. Rushmore. The road to Mt. Rushmore was one of the most ridiculous drives I've ever made because it's filled with tight turns. There is not a single part of that road where you drive straight for more than 20 yards. Not to mention the Garmin told me to cut through someones yard to get to another road that was actually 5 miles in the other direction.

We finally got there after Sarah bouts of car sickness, luckily she didn't get sick. Neither of us

had ever seen Mt. Rushmore before and now I am very glad we took the drive out there. Its

something that everyone has seen in books since they were kids but rarely actually get to see in person. It was really cool to see and we took some great pictures. I thought the museum and

history behind it was just as neat as the mountain itself. There is a trail that goes around the front of the mountain to give you some neat perspectives of each face and ends in the sculptures actual original studio and passes by one of the original diesel air compressors that was used to

power the jackhammers that chipped away the rock.

Here is the Aveunes of the States at the foot of Mt. Rushmore. Each column has four states on it with an inscription of the date it became a state.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson

Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln

George Washington

This is the artists final sculpture that was used as the template for the drawing. In the museum they said that variations in the rock formation would not allow them to complete the lower half of the sculpture so it was left as just heads.

Day 2 at Yellowstone

There is so much to see at Yellowstone it can't be done in one day. The second day started by making the 60 mile trek to the northwest corner of the park to see Mammoth Hot Springs. The Mammoth Hot Springs are created from calcium carbonate in the spring water. The water is somewhere around 160 degrees when it comes out out of the ground. Luckily it was warmer, clear and calm so the steam was a little easier to see through.

After Mammoth Hot Springs we saw a bufflao hanging out taking a nap so we stopped to take a few pictures.

After the buffalo we stopped at Norris Geyser Basin. Its one of the more active thermal areas in the park with tons of small pools and geysers. We walked about miles total at Norris and saw several geysers although they weren't going off at the time. Most geysers go off every several hours to days or even months. So we weren't lucky enough to see any other than Old Faithful go off.

Here's Sarah in the lower half of Norris Geyser Basin at the beginning of the trail. You can see all of the steam coming up in the distance, those are geysers and steam fumeroles. There were tons of them around here, too many to take pictures of them all.

This is the Echinus Geyser, obviously not doing a whole lot at the time. The first time I came to Yellowstone I was lucky enough to watch it erupt but they said in the past few years it has been very erratic and erupted every couple days to several months in between each eruption.

It doesn't look like much in the picture but its very deep and the colors go from reddish brown to bright blue in the middle.

Another cool feature at is paint pots. I think there is only 3 places in the park where these occur. These things have a really cool sound and I guess its exactly what you would expect it to sound like. We could hear them before we saw them and knew what it was.

We have several hundred pictures from Yellowstone but perhaps the most entertaining came from the moments before we left the park. I was driving and turned onto East Entrance road and went about 1/4 mile and crossed a bridge just as a few buffalo started poking their heads out of the woods. They had no intention of stopping and soon there was about 20 or 30 right in the middle of the road and we were stuck in the middle of the bridge. I was thinking theres no way these things were going to go onto the bridge but Sarah got really nervous so I backed up all the way off the bridge and into a turn-out. Sure-enough the buffalo came right onto the bridge with a big male leading the pack. Other people kept driving onto the bridge right in the middle of them. I was secretly hoping the buffalo would ram their cars. We could tell they were starting to

get upset because they were bucking and grunting when the cars started getting too close. I don't know why people are in such a hurry that they couldn't wait 5 minutes to let them cross but it ended without incident. The buffalo crossed, hung out in the road and stared at people for a while then we got on our way.

Day 2 at

There is so much to see at Yellowstone it can't be done in one day. The second day started by making the 60 mile trek to the northwest corner of the park to see Mammoth Hot Springs. The Mammoth Hot Springs are created from calcium carbonate in the spring water. The water is somewhere around 160 degrees when it comes out out of the ground. Luckily it was warmer, clear and calm so

Yellowstone Smells Like Hard-boiled Eggs

Thankfully its a short drive from the Tetons to Yellowstone. It was only about an hour drive. As soon as we got into Yellowstone we could tell that this park was a much more popular tourist attraction than the others yet it is the only one that has no WiFi. Thats why are posts are a few days behind. The first stop we made in Yellowstone was our campsite, at Grant Village. Yellowstone started closing campgrounds for the winter last weekend so our choices were limited. Grant Village was at the south end of the park so a drive to any attraction in the park was at least 20 miles. The park is 1/4th the size of Ohio so getting anywhere takes time. Naturally, the first sight to see was Old Faithful. As we waited to watch the geyser, a crowd of a few thousand people gathered to watch. It goes off about every 90 minutes but there was still a huge crowd every time. The point of our trip was to see some of the most secluded places in the country but you cant go to Yellowstone and not see Old Faithful.

After Old Faithful we took a walk around a wood plank trail to check out the rest of the geyser basin. Some of the other thermal features on this walk were Morning Glory, Chromatic Pool, Giant geyser and many, many others.

Morning Glory was looking a little drab when we saw it. They say people throw coins and stuff in it which clogs the spring, and cools the temperature which allows the bacteria to grow and changes the color from a brilliant blue to the brownish color in the picture.

We saw most of the thermal features of the park on the first day and we could feel the weather changing as the day went on. The wind grew stronger and colder and by 6PM it was snowing! We were prepared for chilly weather but not quite snow. We contemplated sleeping in the car

instead of the tent since the whole back of the tent is mesh. With the rain-fly on it (kind of)

blocked the wind and we were able to blow up the air mattress so we opted for the tent. When we woke up the tent was covered in snow and stiff from frost. We slept in sweatpants and jackets, Sarah had 2 sleeping bags and a blanket. We survived but anything not covered by the sleeping bags was awfully cold. We also ran out of batteries so we couldn't take pictures of the

frost.

Here is a picture of Grand Prismatic Pool. It was so windy and cold that the steam covered everything. If you google it you will probably recognize the aerial view of it. Its one of the most colorful pools in the park.

These two pools are sunset lake and sapphire pool, also very colorful. The water is absolutely crystal clear. There are so many of these around the park that they all started to look the same and the pictures don't do justice to the color.

I'll post more from Yellowstone later, We're sitting in a Starbucks in Milwaukee and looking for a hotel in Chicago. We'll be home a few days earlier than expected but we're definitely looking forward to a bed.

Cute Critters

Small herd of elk in the Rockies:
Coyote in the Canyonlands:

Yellow-bellied Marmot in the Rockies:

Adorable chipmunk in the Tetons:

Bull Elk in the Rockies:

Stellar's Jay in the Rockies:

Ravens in Yellowstone:

Buffalo on the move in eastern Yellowstone:

Close up of buffalo by the road:

Buffalo crossing bridge in eastern Yellowstone (with us watching from a distance because I was scared about being charged):

Buffalo stealing a coke in Yellowstone:

The wildest animal of all in Yellowstone:

Mmmmmmmmm!!!

The following is a step-by-step plan for constructing the BEST campfire food ever: the pudgy pie.

Since Byron is a seasoned pudgy veteran, he took charge and I took pictures.

Step 1: load pie iron with bread and pepperoni

Step 2: apply pizza sauce

Step 3: place cheese & cover

Step 4: close pie iron & apply heat

Step 5: remove from flame

Step 6: Enjoy!

Grand Teton Sunset

Dad, this is what we were watching when I called you to tell you the good news. I had to make a post of this just because it was one of the neatest things I've ever seen.