Billings, Miles City & a long drive home.... The End

We left the beautiful mountains in our rear view mirror and stopped for supper in Billings, MT. We were all a little woozy from the miles and miles of switchbacks. Since I work for an electric coop, I noticed a lot of the huge transmission lines, substations, rail cars full of coal,  and even picked out some Touchstone Energy Cooperatives along the route home.

A couple hours down the interstate and we stayed overnight in Miles City. The kids got one last night of swimming in a hotel pool and we all slept well.

Up early, we knew it would be a long day in the car because we decided to make a run for the lake (13 hour drive). We stopped for lunch in Dickinson and filled up with gas a few times along the way. Tracking our mileage, we were very close to 3,000 miles from when we left Eau Claire last Saturday. Our kids were absolute troopers! They got along so well and kept busy watching movies, reading, playing games and just watching the land go by. Travis and I commented several times at how thankful we are that the kids travel so well. We would get out and run around at each stop. The snack bag and cooler saved us and I would highly recommend having food and water on hand at all times during a trip!

We hit some rain storms in North Dakota, but nothing serious. We waved at Fargo and then continued our trek across northern Minnesota. 

When we first started this adventure, we started tracking license plates to see how many different states we could find. We ended at 47 different plates. The three elusive states were West Virginia, Rhode Island and Hawaii. :)  It was a fun game that had us putting on a few extra miles at any touristy parking lot. LOL

I have hundreds more photos and many stories to tell, but I hope you enjoyed this blog as a way to share in our adventure. Stay tuned.... we are debating about our next family vacation... suggestions so far... Washington DC, Caribbean cruse, New York City, San Diego, Carolinas.... hmmm....

Elk

Wednesday - Old Faithful Snow

We stayed in West Yellowstone on Tuesday night and saw some small male elk on the way out of the park. Back into Yellostone on Wednesday morning, we headed to Old Faithful. It was pretty cloudy and it wasn't long before it was snowing quite hard. The temp was about 34*. We stopped at Old Faithful and only had to wait about 20 minutes before it erupted. The sky actually cleared and the sun came out while we were there. It was a beautiful sight and we were all excited to see it.

Our next stop was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Holy buckets! What a sight! We hiked along some trails and saw the huge canyon and giant waterfalls. (See Trav's post.) We also watched two osprey in a nest high on a rock point. The snow and wind picked up and we were chased back to the car to warm up. 

Heading north, we saw hundreds of bison and bison calves. The landscapes were amazing! The weather cleared and we had hopes of exiting Yellowstone and then driving  Bear Tooth Pass. Unfortunately, after leaving the northeast gate of Yellowstone, we learned that Bear Tooth was closed due to snow and ice. With not many options of getting out of the Rockies, we drove Chief Joseph's Scenic Highway... WOW! The switchbacks seemed endless at times and views were spectacular. We had to stop on one narrow road to let a heard of female elk and calves cross in front of us. We also saw two moose grazing on the side of the road.

This photo doesn't really do the scene justice, but all the road you can see in this photo, we drove on!

Tuesday - Three Little Bears

Near Roosevelt, there were people gathered and a park ranger stopped... we quickly learned that if a park ranger was nearby it usually meant there were bear. The first two black bear we saw were twitterpated and gave the Yellowstone visitors quite a show. Next we saw a momma bear laying near the base of a tree with three small cubs playing around her. The ranger was very nice and showed me where to stand to get good photos. There were reports of a grizzly near Lamar Valley, but we did not get to see it. We were amazed at how stupid some people were when it came to the wild life. We saw some folks sneaking up a hillside near the black bear (not smart!) and also a Canadian vehicle stopped in a well marked "no stopping zone" with male bison inches from his car. The wrangler on the wagon ride said that bison can jump six feet high and can easily roll over a vehicle if angered. He said many tourists leave the park without side mirrors (if not worse problems) if they don't respect the animals.

 Here is good one of the cubs... momma is laying behind this tree.

Tuesday - Covered Wagon Ride & Cookout

Months ago I had booked this covered wagon ride and cookout, not really knowing what it would be like. It was amazing and will go down as a highlight of the trip. We left from a corral near Roosevelt Lodge in Yellowstone. The wranglers hitched up a team of Percheron to a covered wagon. The horses names were Jed and Jake. We traveled through Pleasant Valley. The scenery was amazing. We saw bison, coyotes, prong horns (the boys look like Elvis) and yellow bellied marmots. The wranglers were great story tellers and made us laugh. After about an hour in the wagon, we arrived to a flat spot in the valley. The food smelled so good! It was cool outside, but we were comfortable in our coats (so glad I threw them in the car last minute!). We were treated to steak, Rosie's baked beans, corn bread, coleslaw, watermelon, and apple crisp! YUM!

We also drank "cowboy coffee" made over the campfire served in a tin cup. It hit the spot! The kids played in a little pebble stream and Molly even did some cartwheels with the mountains in the background.  Soon a cowboy jumped up on a stump near the campfire and started singing and telling stories. We ended the campfire time with "Home on the Range". We were all smiles. 

Back on the wagon, we learned that the bison we saw on the way to the cookout had moved onto the trail and we would have to travel very near some grazing bison. These are the young male bison that have been driven out of the herd and they can be grumpy. Soon our wrangler said we would be bunching up the covered wagons and trotting the wagons past the grumpy bison. When bison raise their tales it means they are mad. Bison do not have good eye sight, so by bunching up the wagons and trotting past (while making lots of noise), they are intimidated and *should* not charge. Key word is should.... eeek!  So, Jed and Jake got a little antsy and started into a trot, the wranglers started yelling and waving their hats and we passed feet from two ticked off bison. You could say our hearts were racing! We made it past safely and arrived back at our car with full tummies and stories to tell. 

Heights

The Yukon climbed and more importantly successfully descended the huge Rockies. The ability to manually shift the transmission sure saved on the brakes and gave us a nice consistent decent around the never ending switch backs.

Here's a look down...

You don't want to ride the white line out here.

It's too bad they closed Beartooth Pass due to the snow storm we were in, however, Chief Joseph's Scenic Highway was scenic on the way out.

Roosevelt Junction

We headed north to Roosevelt junction and saw bison, moose, a badger and black bear. We hiked around Roosevelt Lodge until it was time for our covered wagon cookout in Pleasant Valley. 

 The kids did some climbing and hiking to burn off some energy. We also stopped to see the petrified tree... an old redwood that there is only a petrified stump left. I'm loving the wild flowers of the mountains!

Rocky Mountains

Our first good look at the Rocky Mountains... leaving Cody, WY. It didn't take us long to reach the east gate of Yellowstone and start climbing! Our first look out point was covered in snow! We also saw some ram sheep on the edge of the road. Here are some photos of us checking out the snow and the jagged rock. 

Gun Museum

Was at the gun museum in Cody and saw some sweet guns!

Musuem

We went to a musuem in cody wyoming and found guns and bears but we needed to pay for a sticker to get in.

Tuesday AM - Cody, WY

We took another trolley/bus tour on Tuesday morning and learned 100 years of history in one hour. :) Sorry that our posts are a little out of order... Payton posted one tonight of the gun museum, but by the time it was Molly's turn on the computer, she was fast asleep. We had a very fun, eventful day. The Buffalo Bill Museum Gun Exhibit was amazing! There were guns from all sorts of movies and some VERY old guns. It took us nearly 45 minutes to see just this section of the museum. Here is a family photo by a cool carriage and Molly's photobomb of the museum entrance. It's after midnight here in West Yellowstone. I have a ton more to post about our awesome day in the park, but it will have to wait.... come back soon... the story involves some angry bison and our covered wagon cookout..... eeek!

Monday - Bighorn Mountains & Cody, WY

We saw our first snow covered peaks as we approached the Bighorn Mountains. We saw a female moose along the road (did have the quick draw on the camera), but it was very neat to see. Our first big game! There were some beautiful views and the kids had their noses glued to the windows. We finally made it to Cody, WY. What a great town! It's really the "old west" at its finest. We walked downtown and sat in front of the historic Irma Hotel (built by Buffalo Bill) and watched a street gun fight. Near the end of the show the wind and rain kicked up and they had to end the show quite quickly. We heard a few "you're gonna die" and shots broke out as they ended the show in fast motion due to weather. It was very exciting! The kids took a swim in the outdoor pool (photo below).

Monday Morning - Deadwood

What a day! We left Rapid City and made our way to Deadwood. We jumped on a trolley tour and toured the historic city. We saw the infamous Saloon #10 where Wild Bill Hickok was shot. I thought this sign was pretty funny as there are a lot of "stories" about the town and the characters that are simply untrue. The sign says, "This bus is the only location in town where Wild Bill was NOT shot."

The town is also the home to Calamity Jane. She didn't have many ties to Wild Bill (like stories go), but she wanted to be famous forever, so she asked to be buried near him. We visited the cemetery where both are buried. Deadwood is a really neat town! We knew we had a long drive ahead of us, so we couldn't stay long. We headed to our next stop in Cody, WY. 

Crazy kids

Outdoor pool in Cody, WY. Temperature 53*. Only Wisconsin kids.

Goats

Say cheese! At bear country we saw a cute little baby  goat!

Grumpy bear

We are at bear country and we saw a grumpy mad tired stressed looking bear!

Birds

We went to reptile garden and for some reason there were pretty birds there!

Turtles

We went to reptile garden and saw some turtles!

Chameleons and Frogs

We had fun at the reptile museum.  I saw my favorite animal there! A chameleon!!!

Fathers Day

The day started wonderfully with Molly waking me with a bag of jelly beans yelling "happy fathers day!" We traveled around what felt like every hill near Rapid City, I was lucky enough to get in some selfies with the kids.

I also came across a shirt today at one off the many gift shops which I have to share.

Since it was fathers day today, I had the responsibility of selecting a dining place in a foreign environment. Of course I couldn't select a chain, so I jumped on-line a picked a local brewery which happened to be the first fire house in Rapid City. The food was good and the beer was better. With that said, I'll leave you with a few jokes from the reading material at the firehouse.