Day 6: Yellowstone National Park, WY

We enjoyed a leisurely morning, since we didn’t have to get so many miles down and I planned to finally bathe our filthy kids. Desmond was his usual pokey self eating breakfast, and we tried to remain patient as he ate. The restroom was a bit of a hike and I have to admit I was a little fearful of running into a grizzly bear along the way, thanks to the warnings near our campsite. Thankfully, I was not eaten by a bear and made it back to the RV for an omelet.  

More bison

We planned to hit up the upper and lower falls, Norris Basin, and mud volcano area. This may sound obvious, but if you’ve never been to Yellowstone, or don’t know much about it, it is humongous. It takes a long time to drive to the various sights. But they are unlike anything you would see anywhere else, so it is worth the drive. I enjoyed driving through the national park (except the tight turns at the edge of the cliffs) and looking for wildlife. We mostly just kept spotting bison. Dad said he didn’t remember there ever being so many. I guess that it’s a good thing, since they had almost reached extinction. I also did not realize Yellowstone sits within an old erupted (and still active) volcano. This accounts for all the geysers and steaming thermal pools you find. We started at the Mud Volcano area. It was a half mile walk around the loop. I enjoyed checking out the gurgling mud puddles and spotting the steaming pools. Tommy complained about the sulfuric smell (like hard-boiled eggs). Desmond ran almost the whole way. That kid has so much energy!

Grand canyon of the Yellowstone

Grand canyon of the Yellowstone

Next we headed to the various views of the upper and lower waterfalls. Desmond liked them best when we were closest to the falls. The views were pretty cool from the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (not nearly as grand as THE Grand Canyon), but the colors of the rock carved by the river and the river itself were really beautiful. I tried not to be too anxious about Desi running everywhere. Trudy was a bit easier to deal with, since I put her in the Moby carrier. 

Norris Geyser Basin

Next, we were on to Norris Geyser Basin. This was pretty spectacular and unlike anything I have ever seen. Tommy thought it would make a good setting for a scene in Star Wars. The turquoise pools would fade into different shades of orange and green. I tried to ignore the steamy sulfur smell (not so easy for Tommy) and enjoy the views. Desmond liked finding nearby pools, especially if they traveled like streams or waterfalls. 

Norris Geyser Basin

Norris Geyser Basin

We headed back towards camp, stopping at one of the Yellowstone General Stores for some provisions and took our showers before driving on to our site. Desmond spotted a neat lean-to that some kids had built and enjoyed playing inside it. He found some sticks he was able to attach to the wall and created a “clock” complete with a face, hands, and pendulum. He walked the parts back to our campsite and enjoyed playing outside, drawing with chalk on the ground, and building a nest for the birds. When the dandelions he put on the nest fell, he was convinced it was the birds who had eaten them. 

Desmond's Lean-to

Showing off his "clock"

"Cheers!"

Day 5: Greybull, WY to Yellowstone National Park, WY

Miles traveled: 131 (total: 991)
States traversed: Wyoming

We left a dreary Greybull determined to reach Yellowstone. For once, it seemed, the weather cooperated. It sprinkled a bit, but we avoided the wind and the sun even peeked out a bit that day. We passed through Cody, WY, which looked like a cute tourist town that advertised nightly rodeos in the summer. On we went to Yellowstone and the plains gave way to mountains and evergreen forests.

Dad shows Desmond a mountain river in Wyoming

As we drove through the gates of Yellowstone (we gained free entrance thanks to Dad’s National Parks pass), we were greeted by bison right outside the RV. We wound through the park to Fishing Bridge RV Park and found a site to camp. For the first time, we arranged two nights in the same spot. Our stay included one free shower apiece, so we decided we’d take our showers the following evening to avoid paying the fee to shower. We located our spot and made some sandwiches for lunch.

Next, we set out for Old Faithful. I’m not sure why I imagined things in Yellowstone being closer together. They are not; the park is enormous. So, it was over an hour to Old Faithful. On the way, we met some bison traffic jams. Who do those bison think they are? Like this is their home or something! They just stand in the road with no regard to the tourists trying to drive by. You can really get up close and personal to them by driving by. One tourist reached out of her car to try to pet one as she went by. Some even dumber tourists hopped out of their cars to try to pose for pictures with them. Maybe they didn’t see the signs all around that warn, “Bison are wild animals. Do not approach.” We just took pictures. You’d think after seeing hundreds of them, you’d grow tired of it, but I was pretty fascinated with them each time. We stopped at Gibbon Falls and Desmond enjoyed looking at the waterfall. As the RV wound around the river, I was a little anxious since the shoulder along the road is pretty small. We enjoyed spotting the steam rising up from the earth; I’ve never seen anything like that.

Bison walking around like they own the place

Tourist thinks tripod will protect him from 1000 lb beast

We arrived at Old Faithful and joined the crowds waiting to see the geyser explode. After Tommy checked geysertimes.org, we found out we had about 40 minutes until the next explosion. Desmond was begging to visit a gift shop, so we stopped in the visitor center and gift shop. Desmond enjoyed running around the exhibits and checking out the dials, digital displays, and videos of mudpots. He was disappointed there were no clocks for sale in the gift shop. We headed back out to find a place to watch Old Faithful. We had to wait about 20 minutes; she was late bursting. The geyser spurted a few times and we wondered if that was the end. Desmond was unimpressed but worried it would shoot water on him. Dad called it Old Fizzle. Then, about 15 minutes after it was predicted to blow, it started shooting its water up.

Old Fizzle?

GQ's next model (and a clock)

We hit up Yellowstone General Store on our way back to the RV and picked up some necessities (local beer and wine and ice cream) and got back on the road towards the RV park. We stopped at Prismatic Springs, which I found to be much more impressive than Old Faithful. It was very cool; you could walk on a boardwalk all over the thermal ground and view steaming waterfalls and boiling pools in beautiful pastels of turquoise, orange, and peach (I can only imagine how vibrant the colors would be if the sky had been clear). There were also bacterial formations that created unique pools that reflected everything around them and made the landscape look like another planet. Desmond really loved looking at it, but he made us anxious running around the boardwalk with no railings!

Prismatic Springs

Prismatic Springs

On our drive home, Desmond fell asleep and we spotted some elk atop a hill (a nice change from the bison). We parked and made dinner, while Desmond continued to sleep in his carseat. He woke up and crashed on the couch while we at tacos, bean salad, and homemade guacamole. He woke up again and after a quick diaper change and pajamas, he went to bed. I don’t think bedtime has ever been so easy for Desmond! The rest of us stayed up chatting and cleaning up from dinner before heading to bed.

Day 4: Mount Rushmore, SD to Greybull, WY

Miles traveled: 329 miles
Total miles driven: 860 miles
States traversed: South Dakota, Wyoming

After waking up, we headed over to see the Crazy Horse monument a few miles away. Wow, what an impressive feat! The monument was started in 1948 and all you can make out is Crazy Horse’s head. His nose is about the size of one of the heads on Mount Rushmore. I wonder if they’ll ever finish it… if they do, it will be the largest sculpture in the world, and it will be truly awesome.

From Crazy Horse, we planned to head out to Yellowstone National Park, but we didn’t quite make it there. We drove across Wyoming: cowboy country. We passed ranches and spotted people wearing cowboy hats. We passed sagebrush, plateau plains, and mountains. We met friendly people. I felt sorry that I’ve never read books to Desmond about cowboys or Native Americans. He’s such a book lover, and gives him a foundational understanding of much of what we talk about. The cowboy stuff out here means little to him. Oh well, we will work on that.

Desi and Tommy  working on breakfast

As we were driving through Wyoming, we had to decide if we were going to follow the route on the billboards advertised as the “shortest route to Yellowstone” or the route suggested by Dad’s Garmin GPS, two different routes. My phone (Siri) agreed with the billboards, but we decided on the Garmin’s route, since it would take us through Sheridan, WY, a larger town, which would provide shopping opportunities, since we needed to replenish some of our groceries (most importantly, our Diet Pepsi, since the Holmes’ tend to be addicted to the stuff). The route took us over a huge mountain (Cutler Mountain in the Big Horn Mountains and Granite Pass), which reached up to 9000 feet in elevation. The weather was bad: rainy and foggy. Perhaps the view was nice on a clear day. But since it wasn’t a nice day, we had some more white-knuckle driving. At least it wasn’t windy. The highlight of the drive was spotting four moose along the road. I’m pretty sure only Dad and I were able to see them, since we were sitting up front.

Terrible visibility on Cutler Mountain

We didn’t make it to Yellowstone or Cody, WY, which was our backup location. Because of the slowdown in the mountains, we had to stop about an hour outside Cody in Greybull, WY. We stayed at yet another KOA. We have come to find they do have a standard of cleanliness and family-friendliness we were starting to enjoy. This one was owned by an older Dutch couple. They were very friendly, and their boxer Bonnie liked Desmond. Desi liked her, except when she tried to lick his face. They had a nice playground, but we could really only walk around it because everything was wet from the drizzle we were experiencing. We cooked some frozen pizzas for dinner, I did a couple loads of laundry, and we called it a night. I went to bed wondering if dad’s promise of using the air conditioner sometime on this trip would come to fruition. If not, I really overpacked.

Day 3: South Dakota

Miles traveled: 367 miles (total 547)
States traversed: South Dakota
 
In Sioux Falls, we got on the road around 9:30 and headed west. We initially talked about stopping to see the Corn Palace, but were behind on time, so we had to skip it. Too bad, I kind of wanted to check it out. From what I understand, they change the organic material exterior each year. Oh well, according to a postcard I received from my friend Kristen in sixth grade, it is dumb. Haha. (I still have the postcard; though she uses some other choice word to describe it).

Driving across the prairie, I had the Little House on the Prairie theme song stuck in my head for at least half the state. I kept looking for the wildflower-covered hill that the Ingalls ran down in the opening of that show. I never found it, so instead I imagined Pa leading a covered wagon over the unfriendly terrain. As we got closer to the Black Hills, my mind switched to the Beatles’ Rocky Raccoon. Later, I told Desi, “This is where Rocky Raccoon lives!” and he responded, “Yeah, there’s his grandfather clock! And look, he has a grandmother clock!” and on and on he went…

We stopped at a major tourist trap called Wall Drug. It’s the sort of place you see advertised every ten miles for two hundred miles. It was a huge complex that contained gift shops, ice cream parlor, candy shops, game rooms, a shooting gallery, and several animatronics scenes. If nothing else, it was a good place to get out and stretch our legs and have some ice cream. For some reason, Desmond threw up just as we were ordering ice cream. It came out of nowhere, but the workers were understanding and he seemed fine afterwards. Not sure if it was the excitement or what, but I ate most of the cherry cheesecake ice cream we were sharing, just in case. 

We continued on the road to Mount Rushmore and I was able to cross one of my top ten bucket list locations (next stop: Machu Picchu!). The weather was chilly, but the wind had finally died down in the Black Mountains, so Dad was happier. Desmond was excited to see “the people on the mountain” and we took pictures, gazed at the monument with some binoculars, and got back in the RV. We found a campsite a few miles away and settled in for the night. Although we were in a really nice campground (another KOA), which you could tell is a really fun place during the summer, we had no wi-fi or cell service, so we had a low-tech evening. Dad grilled some brats and we enjoyed some Fat Tire beer before going to bed.