Yellowstone Trip - Days 19-21: The Leg Home

Once leaving Custer, my attitude started to change.  I knew it was almost over...the last, final leg of the trip.  Still had a good time, but there was a cloud overhead.  Know what I mean?  Like the first part of the trip, it was a travel day every day until we got home.  This too gets old.  I am now a firm believer in the 2-2-2 plan I've been wanting to live by that is:  < 200 miles a day, arrive by 2pm, and stay for at least 2 days.  I also learned on this trip that NOT having reservations and having to keep those is a really nice feeling whenever possible.  Schedules create some stress all on their own.

 This little city is Wall, SD.  It's known for Wall Drug.  Wall drug really is not just one store--at least not anymore.  It's more of a compression of touristy stores and cafes.  Despite that, it was pretty cool.  See it if you can.

The Corn Palace is a corntastic building in the city of Mitchell, SD.  People say to make this stop as well.  Honestly, it was closing and we didn't even see it.  I did talk to the folks inside and it's sort of an arena for events and some history of how corn was presented to farmers in the olden days to attract  business.

This little campground was a really beautiful CB one exit west of Mitchell, SD.  It's a gem called "Famil - E."  Nicely set up, beautiful trees, and quiet.

The "Peculiar CG" in the city of Peculiar, KS--south of KC--was an ok stop to visit one of Gina's friends, Sharn.  Management seemed too self-occupied with stuff.

We drove back into KC, KS to see Sharn.  Her son Chuck accompanied us on a tour of pretty much all of KC, KS and KC, MO.  We stayed out late, had some Hibachi grill, and some good convo.  The next morning, we headed back.  The "Yellowstone Trip" will surely be a fond memory for Gina and I.

Yellowstone Trip - Days 16-18: Custer State Park

Custer State Park is east of Yellowstone by a day's drive in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  We saw more animal life here than in Yellowstone.  The campsite within the park was also pretty nice.  We didn't get a chance to grill out much 'cause of our agenda to see stuff, but still, the North Stockade CG is pretty nice.

 

 Take a look at the Granite spears below.  If you look closely, you can see the tunnel!  There were 6 scattered throughout the park.  Two of them line up with Mt Rushmore as the background when driving through them.

This particular tunnel is on the Needles Scenic Loop drive.  Very, very worthwhile drive.

Yep, Mt. Rushmore is right at Custer State park.  It was only about 13 miles from our campground (on curvy roads).  Oddly, for me, the presidents are much smaller than I anticipated with a man being only just smaller than Washington's nose.   I always thought the monument was HUGE.  Not so much.  Still, a must see.  A note was that the Crazy Horse monument wasn't far away from Rushmore, but only the face is somewhat completed.  We were going to go, but they wanted $20 for each person!  Wow.  We asked about exhibits and the such and determined it wasn't worth the money.

Yellowstone Trip - Day 15: Devil's Tower

What an interesting site to see.  An all natural structure that was made famous in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  In fact, if you eat dinner at the KOA cafe, they show the movie every night at 7.  We started to watch it with dinner, but found we just needed some rest after eating.  On the short drive up to the tower from the KOA CG, the landscape was riddled with groundhogs!  Everywhere.  This was an overnight stop.  Enjoy the pics.

Yellowstone Trip - Days 11-14: Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone is known for it's animals and it's thermal activity.  It is on top of an active volcano.  What you see are breath-taking landscapes and some wildlife mixed in.  I have to admit that I expected wildlife to be everywhere like I've seen on TV and that's just not the case.  But, if you know where to look, there is plenty to be seen.

There are 5 entrances into Yellowstone that I'm aware of:  North, South, East, West, and North-East.  We used 3 of those entrances including South from the Tetons, East near Cody Wyoming, and West where we stayed in the city of West Yellowstone at Grizzly RV park.

Buffalo grazing in the valley.  They were at some distance, but pretty cool anyway.

The waterfalls and rivers that run through Yellowstone are gorgeous and there are several of them.

Some animals above include a wolf pack (at the Wolf and Bear exhibit in West Yellowtone) and a Red Deer within the park.  Wolves and bear are rare sightings these days due to cracking down on tourists feeding them (mostly bear as wolves are timid).

 Here is a shot of me at "The Terraces" in the northern part of the park.  Heated water pushes up through limestone and as it does, it carries heavy limestone deposits which cool over the ground to form the terraces.  Neat, must-see sight in Yellowstone.

Some doe elk and calves lounging near the Madison River.

This is a shot of Gina with Old Faithful in the background.  I recorded video of the entire eruption and Old Faithful gets MUCH higher.  As it was terminating, I turned off the video to snap a picture of my honey.  Old Faithful is, of course, the iconic main attraction of Yellowstone.

This last photo is another thermal attraction called the Excelsior Geyser Crater.  Yellowstone was fun.  We could have stayed here for two full weeks and take more time to see it.

Yellowstone Trip - Days 5-10: Grand Tetons and Cody

What wonderful scenery coming up up the middle of Wyoming and into the Tetons!  Landscape changed from rolling hills covered in sage bush to majestic glacier-covered mountains steeped in lodge pole pines. 

In the picture above, we stopped on the side of the road in lower Wyoming.  Beautiful skies and steep hills.  

 The city of Fort Washakie is a cute town and they stamp the surrounding hills!

 This is our first glimpse of the Tetons.  Wow, right?

Above is the RV at our site at basically the only campground with full hookups in the Teton National forest--Colter Bay park.

Shot of the Tetons from Colter Bay Village.

Here, you see Gina and I on Elk Island for a rustic dinner as part of a lake excursion.  We initially thought the "Dinner Cruise" would be a larger boat that we would travel along the lake and enjoy the sites while having dinner served.  What we ended up having was a crowded small boat (one of two) that boats out and around Elk Island stopping on the island for a rustic BBQ-style dinner on picnic tables.  Eh, it was ok and we were out and about.  The dinner included grilled corn, cowboys beans, bread, taters, steak, and trout.  Desert was cobbler from a tin.  Our boat Captain was Captain Ron and our first mate was Terry.  They asked if anyone could assist if called upon and I raised my hand as I always tend to do.  They made me second mate...whatever that means.

Above is a cool shot of the Tetons in the morning haze as we headed into the city Jackson.

 This town is entirely a tourist trap.  I didn't see any other housing or stores other than tourist-oriented ones.  Still, it was cool and we had a great dinner at a place called "Local Restaurant and Bar" that included my first taste of Buffalo (burger), onion soup, seared ahi tuna salad, and oyster shooters (real treat).

Elk antlers adorn the 4 corners of the central square.  All animals with antlers shed them every year and grow another pair.  The boy scouts collect the horns and sell them at auction.  The rotary club created these structures with the antlers collected.  How do I know?  Cause there was a placard explaining it next to the antlers!  By-the-way, animals with horns, such as cattle/bison, do not shed their horns.  Horns are bone while antlers are similar to our fingernails.

Two shots above of us posing with the statues spattered about the place.

Yellowstone Trip - Day 4: Rawlins, WY

Horse city!  Lots of horses and lots of empty little unique motels, long closed.  Gina and I can't figure out what folks do here to survive.  The city has an old western feel to it sort of like a cross between cowboy and oil towns, but not either really.  Hard to explain.  Take a look at the pictures.  We stayed at the Rawlins KOA which was basically the only game in town.  It's a travel day and tomorrow too, so we ventured out to get a look at the town and grab a bite to eat and that was about it.  Next day, we went through some awesome scenery.