On Wednesday July 8, we woke up in Gillette WY, and saw the "Devils Tower" National Monument , which is more properly called the Bear Lodge National Monument. All the Indian nations called it something like Bears Lodge, and the caucasian explorer just came up with his own name, but claimed Devils Tower was the Indian name. Devils Tower was the backdrop for the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, so we had to see it. Cray earned his fourth Junior Ranger badge there, after we heard a great talk from a Lakotan (Sioux) Indian woman about the Indian tradit [View Full Entry]

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I am trying to update as much as possible, but time keeps geting away. I have posted some new pictures to older posts and 1 video to day 5, the Grand Canyon Rafting day. Check it out, it's really cool! Anyway, it's about midnight and I need to check on the laundry and get some sleep. On to Devil's Tower and Mt. Rushmore tomorrow! I'll try to upload more pictures as I can, so please check the older posts too. I will be adding to them as I can. Chris [View Full Entry]

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Day 13 I have forgotten what day it is. Sunday, Monday, whatever day we're having a great time. Today we moved from the north of the park to the south. Before leaving Mammoth Hot Springs, we drove around the top of the upper hot springs. We then went over to Roosevelt Lodge for lunch. After lunch we continued going south to the Tower Falls which are 120 feet. Then we went to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. What an incredible site! We went to the North Rim first and we saw the Lower Falls from the top. They fall over 300 [View Full Entry]

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On day 10 Fourth of July! we drove through Jackson WY and then through the Grand Tetons. We entered Yellowstone NP and drove right to Old Faithful just in time to see it erupt. (From Cray, but never mind, he's dying to go try his new Yellowstone slingshot now Sunday evening as we are writing this.... So from Colleen, still on Friday, day 9, we then saw Fountain Paint Pot, Grand Prismatic Springs, other hot springs, other geysers, and some steam vents. This is absolutely amazing place. We had a great meal at Old Faithful Inn, and are staying at Mammoth [View Full Entry]

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Today we started out in Idaho Falls. We stayed in a hotel down the street from the actuall falls. They're not that big, but still pretty to see. We drove east towards Jackson, WY where we had a great lunch at the Snake River Brewery. They have a great brown ale called OB-1. I had to get a shirt with that on it. In the town square there are arches made of thousands of elk antlers. We left Jackson to head north through Grand Teton National Park and then into Yellowstone. We drove up through the South Entrance and headed to [View Full Entry]

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Day 8 - Utah - Driving Day Today we started out in Monticello, UT. We drove up to Moab and found a grocery store where we loaded up on supplies for lunches, snacks and drinks. We then went to Arches National Park and had a great picnic lunch under the Tower of Babel. We did not see much of the park as we wanted to get on the road. The rest of the day we drove through most of Utah. The mountains are really beautiful. The colors of the rocks went from red to green to black. About half way up [View Full Entry]

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Chris woke up early this morning and saw a beautiful sunrise over the Grand Canyon. Later in the morning we all loaded back up and drove across the South Rim to the Desert View Tower and then out the East Entrance. We have now seen the Grand Canyon from bottom to top and west to east. We headed north east to go to Four Corners Monument. Along the way we ran into a lot of road construction (more than 1.5 hours of waiting). It felt like Arizona DOT had cursed up to not make it to Mesa Verde. We got to [View Full Entry]

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Today we started in Seligman, Az. This is the town that the movie Cars was modeled after. We actually saw Mater! We had a big breakfast at the Roadkill Cafe, Colleen had Smeared Deer, and then drove to Grand Canyon National Park. We got there right around lunchtime, too early to check in, so being the adventurous types that we are, decided to try hiking the Bright Angel Trail. We hiked down about a mile on the trail and decided that we had gone far enough. We hiked back up and went to a Ranger Talk about the California Condor. Cray [View Full Entry]

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We went white water rafting on the Colorado River. They had 2 class 7 rapids, one of their names was honeymoon rapid. I could barely hold on but it was so fun and hard. We went on a helicopter, my mom shut her eyes. We went to Roadkill Cafe. It was so good, I was full, but I had to have their chocolate cake. My first bite and in my mind I was like this is the best cake in the world. Cray The first rapid was right where we put in. The first splash felt great but was very shocking [View Full Entry]

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We visited the Hualapai Nation (pronounced Wall-a-pie) also called Grand Canyon West. We went on the Skywalk. I was not afraid but my mom was; my dad a little. It is 4,000 feet above The Colorado River. We also visited Guano Point, which was 4700 ft up, and my dad and I climbed to the top. Earlier we went to Oatman, it was a ghost town. [View Full Entry]

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