Advertisement
Published: August 20th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Forgot the Name of this Spring
Naming contest! What do you think it should be called? Best suggestion wins a new caption! Well, here we are in Indiana...facepalm! I knew I forgot to do something! Keep the blog up, that's what I forgot. Okay, well, here is a brief synopsis of the rest of our trip from Montana to Lafayette, and the recent hi-jinks.
We awoke at the Three Forks motel, and started driving east on 90. We kept seeing signs warning us that Yellowstone turn-offs were approaching, and though we hadn't specifically planned to visit this giant park, Kara suggested that we never knew when we would be back in this part of the country again. So we visited Yellowstone.
If you know anything about Yellowstone, you know that it's impossible to see it all in a day. Their minimum parking pass is for one week, and that's not really enough time to see it all. There are hundreds of miles of trails, hundreds of scenic overlooks and outcroppings, and teeming wildlife. We spent about four hours in Yellowstone, and I'd say we saw about 1% of the park, and that's because we had amazing luck in seeing wildlife.
We entered from the north entrance and went to directly to Mammoth Hot Springs, and guess what? We saw a
Kara and an Elk
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Elk.
Elk who?
I get by with a little elk and my friends.
Worst knock-knock joke EVER. mammoth. Okay, we did not see a mammoth. We did see some hot springs, though, and the multicolored bacteria that live on them. Unfortunately, the springs have been more dormant in the past years than they had once been, so there wasn't as much to see as there were wooden boardwalks to see all of the dessicated remnants of what was once, so they say, much more magnificent. I wasn't too disappointed, though, as we got to see some elk right up close there, and a couple of the springs were still very much active and very much pretty.
After Mammoth, we drove across to Roosevelt Lodge, which was built in honor of Teddy "Foaming Imperialist Outdoorsman" Roosevelt's trip to Yellowstone. It's a restaurant, and it was lunchtime, but we ate some cheese we had left over from the night before that we had declined to refrigerate as a result of our decision not to purchase a cooler. It was melty and sweaty with oil. Delicious. The heat had declared that we spend as much time in the car with A/C on as possible, so we purchased some much-needed and overpriced water and got back in the car.
Elk Camels
Sometimes I think these elk are just camels with no humps. Our time was getting short, so we opted to leave Yellowstone, and it wasn't until we made this decision that we saw the bulk of the wildlife we would see that day. Driving toward the northeast entrance, the road made a wide sweep into a valley, and I saw the most bison I have ever seen in my life. Along the Yellowstone River were just thousands of bison in mini-herds. You'd look at the bison out the window, and say, "Wow, that's a lot of bison." Then you'd look down the valley a little further, and you'd say, "Wow, there's more." They just dotted the landscape like big, hairy bales of hay. And then you'd get a little farther down the road, and you'd think it was the end of the bison, but you'd find yourself saying, "There's more?" and you'd realize you were only at the tip of the iceberg. Many a bison was seen that day, not too close to the car, although we did some adventurous tourists out of their cars, about twenty feet away from a thing that could literally cause the worst day of their lives.
The long road of bison finally
Mountains
On the Great American Highway. ended, and we turned once again with the river into a deeper, mountain-clad valley. We drove for a little while and saw a woman walking with purpose up the side of a road that had signs posted: "Do not walk on side of road." "I wonder if she's stranded," Kara and I said to each other. Then we ran into a little bit of traffic. The side of the road was littered with cars, and the traffic on the road itself had come to a standstill. We didn't know what to make of it. There was a little turnoff that viewed the river that was overflowing with cars, and OHMYGODWOLVES!!! There they were, two wolves, a little way up the river on a sandbar, standing over something red and decidedly not struggling. Wolves at the kill! It was awesome, something I never thought I'd see in real life. The traffic was inching along again, and as I was driving I got Kara to take a picture, which didn't turn out, and then we were gone. No more wolves. Sad face.
We drove out of Yellowstone and onto something that I, if I recall right, is actually called the Great American Highway, which goes from Wyoming into Montana, over a mountain pass. It was a twisty drive, and we stopped briefly at a pull-out to get a better view of the mountains on all sides. As we pulled into the gravel, a marmot jumped out of nowhere and gave us quite a thrill. All curiosity and dumb animal charm, he looked at us in our rumbling car beast and probably made a judgment as to whether it was going to be possible to get any food out of us. I got out of the car and he took off like a shot. We stood around and looked for about a minute, then Kara pointed at me and said, "Hey, you've got a mosquito on your ar-YOU'VE GOT LIKE FIVE OF THEM ON YOUR LEGS!" I swiped and swatted and pointed out that she was also riddled with mosquitoes and we got back in the car and started to itch immediately. These mountain mosquitoes must have been saving all their poison for a while, because those bites didn't go away for days.
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. We finally stopped somewhere in Wyoming at a motel that was clean but serviceable.
***
The next day we drove through much of South Dakota, stopping at Wall Drug along the way. If you've never been to Wall Drug, and you're on the way, it's something you should see. Imagine a gift shop on steroids. All those tacky things that you've ever seen in someone's house and wondered what kind of place would sell that shit, well, they probably bought it at Wall Drug. Bonus: free ice water and five cent coffee (twenty cents if you get it to go). Also, there's a giant jackalope you can take your picture with, and a tyrannosaurus rex animatronic that is genuinely out of place. But that's the great thing about Wall Drug, everything there looks out of place anywhere but Wall Drug.
We drove through more of South Dakota and listened to a book by Amy Sedaris and Paul Something-Or-Other about crafting. It was entertaining, although I think it would be funnier if you actually know what decoupage is.
We entered Minnesota around dusk and drove into the night. The motel we stopped at was pretty much a new low. Not that it was a bad place, it was just...not good. The signs advertised 40 dollars a night and it ended up being 70, and beyond that the "free continental breakfast" turned out to be entirely free of breakfast.
***
The final day of driving we drove for daylight, just stopping the bare minimum and trying to reach Lafayette as soon as possible. If you've ever driven through lower Minnesota, Iowa, central Illinois, and Indiana, you'll forgive me for not mentioning all the wonderful things to see on the last leg of our journey. After all, there is a whole lot of flatness. And highway interchanges. During this part of the drive we listened to The Help, which was a big help for us not to fall asleep at the wheel.
Finally, we pulled into Lafayette after winding down the river road for a while, and unpacked. And slept.
***
Nothing has happened since then. Well, not nothing, Kara has started school, I have found a job, but we haven't really been out to do much, being concerned as we have been to get our apartment furnished and getting jobs and preparing for school and all that. There have been a few things of note, but I'll leave those until I have pictures of them.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.146s; Tpl: 0.045s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0435s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb