Wall Drug and Rushmore

We saw virtually no wildlife as we headed out the East exit of Yellowstone...just at couple of female elk and a bison. We didn't even bother to slow down for pictures of them. The night before on the other hand Mandy was VERY excited on our way back to the lodge after dinner last night because a small dog-like creature crossed the road in front of us...very clearly only about 10 feet in front of us. We're pretty sure it was a coyote. Unfortunately we weren't fast enough to get a picture.

We did get an early start today and it was a long day of driving. We thought that by leaving early we might get some different animals roaming about but as I mentioned, no luck. On the agenda today were 2 stops, Mount Rushmore and Wall, South Dakota.

The drive itself was uneventful except for a decent breakfast and some amusing signage. Mandy had some biscuits and sausage that were so rich that she couldn't eat more than one of the biscuits. And then there was this, which we found amusing:

Mount Rushmore was impressive...Art on an immense scale...It's not a very exciting park though. It was a drop in, take some pictures and head out. The idea behind Rushmore was much neater as a concept than the park ended up being...as it is it's just big patriotic art. The original idea though was to have the site be a museum and repository for all things American with the museum/repository being behind the faces of Rushmore. Mandy also thinks that the kitschy town around the monument detracts from its splendor.

Our 2nd stop and our stop for the night is an interesting experiment. Wall drug store offers free water and cheap coffee and has turned itself in to a tourist destination in the back of beyond in South Dakota. It really seems that there's nothing else around except this small town but this small town seems to have a fairly hopping tourist industry. We started seeing signs for Wall Drug, SD about 500 miles out from the town itself.

Tomorrow will be our next to the last leg to Wisconsin. We think it should take around 12 hours so we'll likely end up in WI in the evening. We tried to tell my aunt but cell phone reception for the entire day has been spotty at best. I think all she got when she answered the phone was the cryptic, "We come!" So it's another long day of driving tomorrow but we get a nice break before final leg home. We'll likely post again from WI telling you how awesome Uncle Scott and Auntie Annie have it.

Song of Wyoming

Man, it sure did take us forever to find an internet connection. We checked "several" Dairy Queens to no avail. We ended up making the supreme sacrifice tonight of eating in the Mural Room at the Jackson Lake Lodge. They had HONEY ROSEMARY ICE CREAM!!! It was awesome. Also, there was some wine involved with dinner, obviously. I'm typing this out as I'm staring out the huge picture windows onto the Tetons. Maryland Dad, I can't believe you climbed to the top of the tall one. It's still covered in snow. That must have been scarier than our Angel's Landing hike.

Anyway, Seattle was awesome. All I had to do was walk Rick through a few of the vendors at Pike's Place Market and he was ready to move. The shear volume of fresh fish and veggies and cherries and pasta and coffee, etc. was astounding. I also showed Rick the awesome Chocolate Box that I found when I was here on business and we stopped by the Beecher's store. Cheese for Everyone!!! We rounded out the Seattle experience by sampling some Washington wines at the Tasting Room and walking down the street where we just happened to run into a Pearl Jam cover band playing live for the 4th of July celebrations. We had dinner and drove literally all night to get to Glacier National Park.

It was extremely beautiful at glacier. I put a snowball on Rick's neck (I didn't have the heart to put it all the way down his back). We had a great drive up the Going-to-the-sun road and hiked a bit around Many Glaciers. Rick took a quick nap by one of the lakes after we saw a Momma and Baby moose at what I thought was fairly close range. Glacier is like the Rockies but more dramatic (if you can imagine that). Of course, there used to be over 100 glaciers and now there are only 23 or so, so if you want to actually see a glacier at Glacier National Park book your trip soon. This is definitely a place to return to. Plenty of hiking plus lots of stuff to do from your car.

From there, we finished listening to The Sun Also Rises (which Rick still hates) as we drove to Yellowstone. We have decided to use some phrases from the book. Getting Tight sounds better than Getting Drunk. We will also start trying to say think like "That's a lot of rot!" Beware. We will be pulling these phrases out at much as we can when we get back.

As we pulled into Yellowstone, it started to pour. This has been our first rain during our entire month long trip. It didn't even rain in Seattle, so we can't really complain. It did make us decide to stay in the Grants Pass Lodge over camping. As we drove around in the rain we took photos of bison, and female elk. We also stopped by some of the geologic fumeroles along the road to our lodge. This morning we drove around and did some plank boardwalk hiking. I don't really think walking on a boardwalk counts as hiking, but the ground is so unstable that I appreciated not having to walk on something that could start bubbling and boiling at any minute. We saw Old Faithful and had a nice lunch at the Teddy Roosevelt Lodge. The Roosevelt beans were awesome. Yellowstone was our first national park and it is really diverse. It has scary mudpots and things that really put the power of the earth into perspective. It also has prairie land, mountains, lakes and rivers. We took an awesome shot of a grizzly that we got from the safety of our car and a good photo of a bull elk. Jeannine, we also shot a photo of a ground squirrel just for you.

Tomorrow we will be getting up nice and early and will hopefully hit Mount Rushmore and the surrounding area.

California Revisited

Everytime I leave I forget how much I love California. Well, northern California anyway. San Francisco is such a great city and the redwoods were absolutely amazing. The Avenue of the Giants is on the same hugeness scale as the Grand Canyon was.

Rick really likes the desert, but I was so glad to be out of them. I like sleeping when there is a chill in the air. San Francisco not only has Alex, which is a huge plus in my book for any city, but you drive about an hour and you hit wine country. Go a little farther and you hit the redwoods. At the top of California we were driving along a non-winding cliff road with the Pacific to our left, redwoods to our right and the fog rolling in. It was absolutely perfect. And we had our first campfire last night.

This morning we traveled through the redwoods some more to Grants Pass where we met up with Uncle David and Aunt Paula for lunch. We were both so happy that they were able to rearrange their schedules to come meet up with us, even though it was a really short visit. Not only was it great to see them (I had actually never met Aunt Paula before), but it broke up our drive nicely. We just got into Washington and checked into a Best Western a few minutes ago. Rick is swimming at the pool while I write this. In the morning we will do some laundry and drive the 100 or so miles into Seattle.

We just started listening to The Sun Also Rises. Rick HATES it. I would like for him to stop complaining about it so that I can enjoy it. I really like the 1920's ex-pat scene in Paris. He isn't appreciating the work for the documentation of the vibe of the time that it is. He keeps looking for a deeper story. He wants more plot. I could use some backup on this. Please leave a comment if you agree with me and enjoy Hemmingway's writing as it stands. If you don't agree with me, don't bother commenting. I don't want to know if you are taking Rick's side :)

So anyway...Seattle tomorrow. I think we will have to listen to some Pearl Jam and Nirvana. We'll probably spend the whole day drinking coffee.

California Dreamin'

It's been a few days since we have updated because we've been pretty busy. Since last we wrote we've gone to Phoenix all the up to the redwoods in northern California.

In Phoenix we had an awesome restful day with our friends Brent and Kelly (i?). We drank beer (for the children) played a fun dice game called Right Left Center and lost badly. Kelly made some excellent pork BBQ and put out an excellent spread. We slept that night in their RV on an extremely comfortable bed that was supplemented with a memory foam pillow top. We're going to have to get a camping version of that!

From Phoenix we headed out to Joshua Tree national forest. It's a neat place but the Colorado and Mojave deserts are much more foreboding than the Chihuahan and the Sonoran deserts. There seems to be much less scrub in the latter two making it seem more desolate. It was also extremely hot in Joshua Tree. Temperatures peaked at 114 degrees that day. One of the neater features in Joshua Tree was an oasis. The National Park Service had the actual shady area and spring blocked off to the point where you couldn't enjoy the shade or even really see the spring but life's reaction to available water in the desert is a neat thing to see even if you can't enjoy it yourself.

After visiting Joshua tree we spent some time with our friend Alex in the lovely city of San Francisco. We celebrated the completion of college and his project manager certification at a local resteraunt named catch on the first day and the second we took a drive through Napa doing what people do when they drive through Napa. Actually, we only stopped at 3 vineyards which all had delicious wine. Wine tasting on the west coast though is much more expensive than on the East Coast. A tasting per person there is 15 dollars. Back in NY or even around MD or PA it ranged from 2 - 5 dollars a person. Coincidentally, during the wine tasting we met a woman from Mandy's hometown of Pottstown, PA during the wine tour. It's a small world...

Leaving San Francisco we headed up the coast to Redwood National Forest. This has been some of our favorite scenery yet. We drove up both US 101 and Avenue of the Giants. I may have seen these enormous trees as a child but I certainly don't remember it. It's almost impossible to come up with words to properly describe the trees. The words spectacular and awesome don't quite cut it. We camped near the forest and managed to have, amazingly, our first campfire of the trip.

Today, we're scheduled to visit my uncle David and continue our trip up to Seattle. You'll hear again from us soon!