Thursday, August 12, 2010
On the road again....
We also drove through towns with population of 180 or less....not sure if I could ever live in a town that small...it's a little eerie.
Not sure if I mentioned this before, but we probably saw 100,000 motorcyclists on our drive over the past couple of days. The Rock N' Rev 5 day Festival in Sturgis was going on with bands like Alice in Chains and Guns N' Roses playing. The motorcyclists were having a cookout in front of all of the hotels too, including ours. I have never seen so many motorcycles, bandanas, beards, and cut-offs in my life! We saw the majority of them driving to Deadwood, which we only got to drive through since every parking lot was full of motorcycles. This was the best picture I could get while driving through town, doesn't really do it justice... I posted a picture below it from a previous Sturgis rally in Deadwood that paints the picture for you...
After driving through Deadwood, we went to see Mount Rushmore. I had never been before, and neither had my Mom, so it was pretty cool to see. Very hot outside too!
The next morning I saw on the news that they found charred dead bodies in a motel in Rapid City...is death following us?....Will post soon about the Badlands.
Monday, August 9, 2010
And the road trip begins...
He was whining and whimpering and I felt the urge to steal him away and cuddle him forever. But alas, we had to move on. Mom took control of my Civic and I almost had a heart attack since it was the first time someone really drove my car. It turned out to be OK....but I took over about 30 minutes later haha. Then we hit a really big storm- lightning, high winds, pouring down rain....So we decided to take cover in an Applebee's (shout out to Marc!) and experienced the lightning storm in a safer way.... After that we still hit some storms but I didn't feel like I was going to fly off the road while being electrocuted in the process. We headed towards our destination for the day... Gardiner, MT...
We saw plenty of geysers and smelled plenty of sulphur. Pretty amazing how bubbling hot they are. We saw a TON of buffalo/bison so I was really excited about that. One walked up right next to my car, so close I could reach out and touch him...but I didn't. As you can see in the picture above, you have to STAY SAFE! STAY AWAY! I really just think he wanted to play though ;) Here are a few of the many pictures I took of them.
Other animals we saw were caribou, moose, eagle, pelican, elk, osprey and her babies...and I think that was it for Yellowstone animals....I wish I could have seen a wolf!
Aside from the animals we saw, we also visited the good ole' Old Faithful. That was exciting for 5 seconds. But, like Mom said, one thing off the bucket list.
We stopped by the Lower Falls and some other amazing landscapes...
After leaving the park, we ended up in Cody, WY that night, right down the block from where the killer who was captured was locked up in the local jail. Can't seem to get away from those guys. We had dinner at a local Italian restaurant which felt a bit ridiculous with country music blasting out on the main strip and people wearing cowboy boots and cowboy hats...but oh my god was the lasagna and tiramisu amazing.