2009 National Park Trip - Day 4

Having gotten to the gift shop and purchasing a map, I had a plan for the day. A nice hike over to Colter Bay. It was one of those “easy” 5-milers that would be just the thing for the first full day at 6800 ft elevation. I got my day pack out (that I got from Dad), strapped on my knife (from Dad), had my compasses and fire starting gear (Dad), packed the first aid kit (Dad’s), and added a couple of liters of water and the binoculars (Dad’s again). It was a lovely day.

Off we went. From the map, I knew we would start from the lodge, so I went to the north end and started up a trail. Up a trail – first clue. We hiked along in some pretty well marked and wide trails. Then the trails got more narrow (second clue), and there were forks that weren’t clear (clue). Then the trees were fallen across the trail – lots of trees.(wake up people!) Finally, the only way the path seemed to go was down a steep embankment. We gave up. Went back. And along the way we looked down and saw a nice wide “easy” trail going happily along. We’d probably gone a couple of miles so far.

I located the trailhead we wanted but there was yellow caution tape across it. And a big yellow sign talking about bear activity. I decided the best plan would be to go into the lodge and ask someone whether it was safe to proceed. They insisted it had been opened “last week”. I was a bit cautious but onward! Met up with a couple of horse carts carrying happy campers back from a wilderness breakfast. Spotted a young bull moose wading in a pond. And we hiked.

We didn’t really see any more wildlife. We took a wrong turn that cost us another ½ mile at least (ended up at the spot where they had that wilderness breakfast) but it had a restroom so Michelle was happy. Finally, 5+ miles later we got to Colter Bay. We were dead tired. We found a restaurant that had an EXCELLENT salad bar and fuelled up. We went through their Indian Art museum which was also excellent. And we took the free shuttle home. Michelle went straight to nap. I went to the lodge to catch up on some emails and do this log.

Michelle joined me at the lodge later and we sat outside on the patio and had some local brew and a smoked trout wrap. It was low 70’s and sunny, although the sun was going down. We sat there until the sun went behind the mountains and the temp dropped about 15 degrees. Then we walked out to see if we could see wildlife. A couple of us spotted some cars, but that’s about all we saw.

Michelle and I went back to the room and just as we were going to sleep, we heard that wildlife strolling by behind our room. We could hear the calling (we’re guessing moose) and hear then walking through the woods, but it was too dark (even with the half-moon) to see them. Pretty cool having them right behind us, tho.

2009 National Park Trip - Day 3

We’ll call this day “The Drive”. We got started late – 11 am – thinking that the drive to Yellowstone would be just a few hours. And the drive started out beautiful as we went through Big Horn. Tremendous views with mountains and a huge canyon with a nice river running through it.

But alas, that was the end of “beauty” for a long while. We had found the ugly middle of Wyoming. Brown. Dusty. Flat. Boring. We ate at a small town Café (that appeared to be the name) and I paid for that the rest of the day. There was construction on the 2-lane roads where we had to follow some DOT guy for miles on a gravelly road. There were some parts of it that had a bit more rain and looked like Central Illinois, with corn and fence lines with trees. Lots of shacks and mobile homes.

We were glad when we finally started getting toward Cody. By that time it was pretty far into the afternoon and any hope to stop in Yellowstone were fading. Once out of Cody the landscape got significantly better. Great mountain vistas. Rivers. Canyons.

We got to Yellowstone at about 6pm. Michelle wanted to drive after being bored out of her mind for the past 8 hours. Yellowstone is beautiful. Waterfalls, the lake, cliffs, mountains, all of it. We sped past. There wasn’t much traffic to speak of.

We got to the main intersection and traffic started to pick up. Then, we came to the dreaded “construction”. First it was 15 miles of gravel – and people driving slowly. Then we came to a dead halt. One lane DIRT road. We waited through that and got moving again, finally coming to the South Exit. We thought our troubles were over and our room awaited. Alas, no. 25 miles of dirt road with parts of it one lane. Slow, dirty, bumpy. The construction equipment everywhere. Trucks. Why did they have to do that at this time of year??? (because of winter, of course). Why did they have to complete rip out the road???

It took us 2-3 hours (or more) to get through Yellowstone and to the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton NP – our final destination. After some discussion, we got checked in and got all our stuff into the room. It’s a nice second story room – big with tall ceilings. A balcony overlooking some wilderness area. Lovely. Michelle was grouchy and tired so opted to stay in. I went back to the lodge.

This is a classic National Park lodge. Huge lobby with huge picture window looking out at the mountains. Patio below where you can attempt to spot wildlife grazing in the huge meadow below. Lake between us and the mountains. A bar where you can sit and view the sunset whilst sipping a “Sustain-tini”. A folk singer.

It was just beautiful. Got some pictures of the sunset and the half-moon glowing. I had 2 “sustain-tinis” and some hummus for dinner. Got to bed nice and tired.

2009 National Park Trip, Day 2

Got up and Michelle wanted pictures of Wall Drug. I was not as excited. As you can see from the pictures, this was not a good combination. We got through it and got on the road.

Next stop, Mt Rushmore. Now I was pretty excited about Mt Rushmore. But you know what? It’s faces on a mountain. And there were about a hundred zillion people there. And since this was a national park tour where we see wilderness, this didn’t exactly fit. Don’t get me wrong. Faces on a mountain is impressive. Hard to believe they were actually carved in there. But we saw them, walked around on the walkway (with the other zillion people). Got a few shots (I like this one with the faces behind us), and got out of there!

Our next stop was scheduled to be Crazy Horse. But well, we’ve already seen faces on a mountain. And Crazy Horse is one fine face on the mountain. We turned left into the entrance, took a picture, and parked at the info booth. On our drive down there we noticed a bike trail all along the road. With bicyclists on it. And we had our bikes on the back. AND we hadn’t gotten any exercise that day (other than fighting the zillion people at Rushmore). Turns out the bike trail was just below us at the info center parking lot. So we unhooked them, took them down the embankment over the barbed wire, and off we went.

It seemed like a good idea to go right from there (south). And we were right. It was downhill. This is one of those old railroad beds converted into a bikepath. So it was a easy slope downward through beautiful scenery. The only wildlife we encountered was a cow that had gotten through the fence and was grazing on the path. We went the 5 or so miles down to Cody. Then we turned around. Remember how I mentioned it was downhill? Well when you’re going downhill and turn around, it turns into uphill. Luckily it was an easy grade and getting back to the car wasn’t too bad. Nice stop.

Next stop, Devil’s Tower. After a fine lunch in Cody, we decided to go west to Wyoming from there. After the beauty that is the Black Hills, Wyoming was, at first, a bit of a disappointment. First thing we saw was a huge cattle pen. And everything was pretty flat and brown. But we turned north and started going uphill and came to a turnout with a view. And what a view! I immediately decided I wanted to live there. And decided that Wyoming was quite beautiful after all.

Michelle got to drive through these 2-lane roads up to DT. She sure enjoyed it! Lots of climbs and turns and mountains and bluffs. Very pretty drive. We were tired when we got to Devil’s Tower and were tempted to just take some pictures and drive on, but after some ice cream and fudge, we went in. We wanted to so some hiking so we took the “moderate” 3-mile trail around the base and through the park – the Red Bed Trail. Once again, it started easy because it was going downhill. The punishment for going downhill is the uphill to get back. And it was a heck of an uphill. The trail had lots of dead trees (I’m guessing they had a fire), so parts of it weren’t very pretty. But then we got to the “red” of red bed and that was beautiful. We also got some nice walks through grassland. Nice, “moderate” hike. I’d say what we were doing on the “easy” hike in the Badlands was more difficult, but this one was not easy.

Near the end, we were walking through the woods and I heard what sounded to me like cracking and falling branch – directly above my head. Michelle made a noise (she was behind me) and I turned back and ran. Turned out it was a flock of buzzards up in the tree above me – and I scared them as much as they scared me (OK, I bet I was more scared). Michelle and I had a good laugh.

After the hike, we continued our journey through the beautiful part of Wyoming. We spotted many more antelope and deer (I haven’t mentioned the prairie dogs yet – they were everywhere, too). As we were driving through a small town getting back on the e-way, Michelle spotted a dog racing across the street. I turned and saw another herd of antelope – right in the middle of town! Odd place, Wyoming.

We found a place to stay in Gillette and ate at a 20’s style “speakeasy”. Had spaghetti and a nice salad. And some wine. We were ready for bed. Another VERY active and fun day.

2009 National Park Trip, Day 1

Amazingly, we got up at 2:15am and were on the road by 2:40. I drove first. Michelle slept. The plan was to drive until morning and stop and have breakfast. The light started after Madison and there wasn’t any real sun until later. At dawn I had a coyote cross in front of me. Other than me, the coyote, and lots of trucks there weren’t many people on the road. LaCrosse, WI was beautiful. The road down into the Mississippi River was great and then the drive up on the Minnesota side. I didn’t know that the river was that wide.

Wisconsin is beautiful. There are lots of trees, cranberry bogs, hills and bluffs. There are forests between E and W bound traffic. Curves, ups, downs. It is an interesting drive.

Minnesota, on the other hand, is Iowa. Central Illinois. It’s flat, farm country. I noticed very few towns along 90 and even fewer exits with facilities. Got the downpouring rain in Minnesota. We finally stopped at a Perkins for breakfast. It was 8:15. Michelle hadn’t woken up for the entire ride. But I needed fillup and so did the car.

Michelle’s turn to drive. I slept. So I don’t have any report, other than construction – a common theme on this drive. Down to 2 lanes everywhere. Luckily traffic is light. I don’t think many people are on the road this year.

We stopped at a rest area in South Dakota where we got lots of tourist information. Having looked at the map while planning the trip, I figured a stop somewhere in the middle of SD after merely driving all day would be fine. But instead, we decided to take Terry’s advice and stop at the Corn Palace. As silly as that all sounds, it was actually pretty fascinating. They built it in 1920-something and each year decorate the outside with corn and other grains. Pretty impressive actually. We snacked on caramel corn and animal crackers and ate at a tiny walk-up snack bar with great pulled pork sandwiches. Pretty town, Mitchell.

Now having looked at the map, I realized we needed to do the drive through the Badlands. Don’t ask me why I didn’t have that on my itinerary, but I didn’t. But the weather after Mitchell was rainy. Hard, slow down to 30mph rain. I was doubting the wisdom of going, since we’d probably get wet and be unable to see anyway. But SD is a big state. By the time we got there (hours later), it had stopped raining. And it was cloudy.

So we went in (skipping the Minuteman missile silo even tho I was very tempted) and, well, WOW! Who knew? South Dakota up to then was just long stretches of rolling grassland. Wheat. Cows. A whole lotta nuthin. Imagine the early pioneers rolling across the prairie minding their own bid-ness and BOOM! The bottom falls out of the land. Incredible vistas, hard to believe it is in the USA, let alone South Dakota. We stopped, took pictures. The second pullover we decided to brave the rattlesnakes and go for a hike. We got about a mile out when the lightning started and we decided to hie it back.

A comment about “easy” trails in the Badlands. I thought that “easy” was a trail that I could bring my mother on. A nice stroll down a wide path that is even, level, and short. Apparently for the National Park Service, “easy” means if you fall off of one of the climbs, you probably won’t kill yourself. We climbed, we slid down, we jumped between crevasses (not deep ones, but I’m sure there were rattlers down there). We could do it easily enough, but it was by no means “easy”. I guess we’ll need to work our way up to “moderate”.

Anyway, we stopped a couple of more vistas (well, most of them) and they all started looking the same. But then I stopped to look at the map and Michelle thought it was a good idea to go up into a rattlesnake-infested canyon that looked cool. I was, um, skeptical. But I went with her (at a safe distance) and we went up and found a cool archway. It was great, but I’m still paranoid about snakes (and by that time I had been up for 18 hours straight and was very tired).

As we were driving out it was getting dusk so the wildlife was coming to, er, life. We saw a herd of prong-horn antelope, a couple of elk, a whole city of prairie dogs, a white-tailed deer, and – most impressive – a bighorn ram. Just standing there munching. We did NOT see any rattlers. I got some pictures of some of these, but they were most impressive with the binoculars so I just have memories.

Finally, we ended up in Wall, SD where the chain hotels were over $100 a night and booked anyway. We ended up in an old place called the Wall Motel, where the lock was broken but the room was clean and the bed was comfortable. We had some dinner at the restaurant next door (Michelle highly recommends the burgers!) and then walked the 2 blocks to Wall “Street” and spent too much time in Wall Drug (5 minutes is too much time). Wall Drug begs the question…why? All-in-all, a very fun and interesting day 1.