Day 14—no, I didn’t forget about it!

We had a late night last night plus a super early morning today—combined with a finicky signal across South Dakota equals a belated blog posting about Day 14! This is why (Heather M.!) that I could never keep up with any kind of daily blog! And I’ll go ahead and let you know that day 15 is going to be behind too!! Anyway…. back to the trip report…

We still had the rental van this morning (shout out to Barb at Fort WeLikIt campground/car rental in Custer, SD—she was SUPER nice to work with—and she’s the only gig in town so she probably doesn’t have to be--but totally was!!) so we decided to take advantage of some more of the scenic drives around the Black Hills area in a vehicle smaller than 31 feet long and 8 feet wide! This would prove to be a very wise decision on the Needles Highway where there is one tunnel that is only 8 feet and a few inches wide! Our first stop was the Custer Wildlife Loop Road. Remember how I said we had become sort of ‘unimpressed’ by bison after 3 days of seeing them in Yellowstone?? Yeah, well—strike that, reverse it. Seeing them in Custer was like seeing them for the first time again! We ooohhed and ahhhed over them—especially the cinnamon calves—which are just too stinkin’ cute! Custer also has several prairie dog towns—and while the signs say they are rodents, they are just about the sweetest looking rodents I’ve ever seen! Again, too darn cute!! And if all that cuteness wasn’t enough, there was a huge pack of burros that were super people friendly. Clearly, people have been feeding them because they would walk right up to you practically asking for a handout!

This guy just hung out at Michael’s window for about 5 minutes until he finally gave up and moseyed along. After the wildlife loop, we still had a few hours left on our rental so we opted to drive the aforementioned Needles Highway. This was quite the scenic drive—especially toward the end as we got to the skinny tunnels (some vehicles literally have to pull in their windows to get through—RV’s and busses are prohibited.). Seeing the cool rock formations and tunnels was worth the drive (I think—ask Michael to be sure!).

We also drove by the lake that they show in the movie National Treasure 2—in the movie, they show it as right behind Mt. Rushmore, but in reality, it is several miles away. We didn’t have time to find the exact rocks from the movie, but our car rental friend, Barb, assured us that they were there and she had found them previously.)

After returning the vehicle, we decided to take the RV to see Wind Cave National Park. We arrived just in time for the 4:00 tour (leaving in 15 minutes) to be sold out—so we had to wait until the 5:00 tour. This worked out well because we were able to explore the visitors center, see a movie about the cave and have the girls nearly complete their junior ranger booklets (that makes their 4th of this trip!).

We then cued up for the tour. Our first stop was at the original, natural opening of the cave—where we were able to see the wind blowing (quite steadily) out of the hole—which seemed to be only about 8 inches wide—how people actually got in there, I have NO idea! Wind Cave is actually the 4th largest cave in the world with over 134 miles of cave in a ONE square mile area of land—it has 3 levels and criss-crosses back and forth a LOT! Fortunately, there is now a large, man-made opening so there was no dropping down into holes for us!

(the natural opening)

Wind Cave does not have the typical cave formations (stalagmites, etc. ) but they are famous for their box work formations. Hopefully you can get the basic gist from these pictures—my cave photography skills are less than stellar! I won’t lie—spending 1 1/2 hours 400 feet underground was a tad creepy! Especially when, during the midway point of the walk, the park ranger/tour guide turned out ALL of the light in the cave. OH MY WORD, it was DARK!!! All of us were a little freaked out after that--- some more so than others!

All in all, though, it was a neat experience and I’m glad we did it together! We made it back to camp in time for an evening shower and a late dinner. Overnight saw some very severe storms roll through the park… some of us woke up (the two who typically do… myself & Abbie!) and some of us slept right through. We needed as much sleep as possible since Thursday would bring an EARLY start to the day.

Day 13—goodbye Wyoming, it’s been real…

We have been in the state of Wyoming for 8 days if I’m counting correctly (which I may not be, considering I’ve not looked at a calendar almost this entire month!) and so it’s with a little sadness that we bid you a fond farewell. Thanks for the amazing scenery—your snowcapped mountains, rolling hills, loads of wildlife and just miles of endless nothing are a refreshing change of scenery to people who are used to a nail salon and gas station on every corner! We would, however, like to introduce you to the wonders of honey mustard—try it, you might like it!!

We left Thermopolis this morning, headed toward the Black Hills area of South Dakota (another new state for us!). But first, there was another mountain range to drive through—the Big Horn Mountains. (As a side note, Michael loves to make fun of me for taking these ‘landscape pictures’ while we’re driving down the road—but I like to do it because it’s easy to forget how beautiful and different it is from home! Not to mention, how much fun is a blog without pictures?!) So without further ado, I present ‘the Big Horn Mountains’:

We arrived in the Black Hills just a little after lunch time and picked up our rental van in the town of Custer. A pre-trip dvd about Mount Rushmore had alerted us to the many scenic drives around the area—that would NOT allow an RV to pass through them—so we thought a rental van might be a good idea. Although Emma was disappointed that we could not get the convertible pictured in the dvd, it was VERY nice to be driving these curving roads in something smaller! The designer of these roads built them especially so that you could see Mount Rushmore through the tunnel approaches—and the promised view did not disappoint.

(the money shot)

We arrived at Mount Rushmore in the late afternoon and found it fairly crowded—I think we are starting to hit the summer season of tourism in the west (glad we are on our way home soon!). We found the Georgia flag on the Avenue of Flags and proceeded down to the viewing area for some more photos.

The girls were pleased to find out that Mount Rushmore also has a Jr. Ranger program—and the booklet was short enough that they were able to complete it and earn their 3rd badge of this trip. We all enjoyed a little history lesson by watching a movie about the mountain and touring the visitor’s center. And we got our question answered as to why these 4 specific presidents were chosen to be on the mountain—I knew they were ‘special’ presidents but didn’t know exactly the reason they were picked. Click on the picture of the plaque to find out if you don’t know either!

After leaving Rushmore, we headed back into the town of Custer and found a place to eat dinner. Then we headed over to the Purple Pie Place (I had read reviews that it was a ‘do not miss’ location)—we tried apple and peanut butter—and the peanut butter was the hands down winner, I think! Michael was rolling his eyes at me for taking pictures of the girls at the pie place—so I got him back by taking one of him in the van! We rolled back into our campground at Custer State Park around 8:30 pm—spotting more than a dozen deer and one bison along the way. Tomorrow is Wind Cave and the Custer Wildlife Road and I’m not sure what else the day will bring… the weather here is very nice so I’m sure we’ll be outside if possible!

Day 12—the day of the fewest pictures ever!

I feel like this might be an appropriate time to mention that I have already filled one 2 gig memory card on the camera (Abbie’s camera—as she continually points out—mine is toast and needs replacing!) and am working on another. So the day that I took only 6 pictures is noteworthy indeed!

We arrived in the town of Thermopolis in the late morning. As I mentioned in my last post, the town is famous for it’s hot springs and even has a “Hot Springs State Park” in the center of town. The park was our first destination. The sunshine, warm temps, and beautiful green grass just beckoned for an outdoor picnic and rest on a blanket. So we decided to do just that!There were two rather antiquated “water parks” in the park (and I use that term very loosely—each had a water slide and some pools) that used the warm mineral springs water; however, the girls didn’t seem all that excited about them—not to mention the smell of the indoor slides and pools was quite strong (a sulfer like smell). So we opted instead for a free 20 minute soak in the pools of the State Bath House—a much more modern/well-maintained facility. Apparently the Indians used to own this land and when they signed it over in a treaty, one of the stipulations was that there would always be a free access to the mineral springs—so the State Bath House was born.

We chose to use the outdoor pool (mostly because the smell outside is not so strong!) and it was WARM! They limit you to a 20 minute soak—and I think this is really because of the temperatures, not because they are trying to get people in and out. In fact, I don’t know that any of us lasted our full 20 minutes. It was very relaxing! After showers, we headed out to our campground and arrived in the early afternoon. We spent the rest of the day just lying around, reading, watching movies and playing games (and doing laundry—thanks Grandma!). It was a nice treat to be able to hang out at our campsite and actually be outdoors. The weather here was lovely!

Tomorrow we will be on our way to the Black Hills area of South Dakota. We’ll be staying in Custer State Park and have visits planned to Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave and the Needles Highway.

And I can just about guarantee that there will be more than 6 pictures!

Day 11—the Timms family gets their ‘cowboy’ on

We all slept in this morning—it’s amazing how tired you get from simply driving around and getting in and out of the RV—we’ve taken a few short walks and such but nothing really strenuous since Jackson and yet we’re all just wiped out every night! Anyway, it was nice to kind of have a leisurely morning around ‘camp’ and then we headed out around 10:30 to the Cody Wal-Mart (#3). It looked like a typical Wal-Mart on the inside—but the outside was cute enough to warrant a picture! (And please just ignore the little emergency happening on the sidewalk in my photo—I didn’t notice the lady on the ground until Michael pointed it out—Ooops! I think she was okay—just fell or something!). I was excited to find “Wheat Montana” bread products in the store (but no grain)—they are a major producer of wheat and I’ve heard a lot about them & their flour so I’m looking forward to tasting their bread. We ate lunch at a cute local BBQ place—Bubba’s BBQ (which sounds more like a southern joint than a western one, IMHO!). I feel like this is an appropriate time to mention that if you enjoy eating honey mustard, be prepared to bring your own when you visit Wyoming—apparently, they have a statewide aversion to serving it or something! My poor chicken finger loving daughter has had a rough time without her beloved honey mustard!! I didn’t realize it was a regional item!

After stopping at a museum/gift shop with an awesome miniature display of the history of the West, the rest of the afternoon was spent with Michael and Ralph trying to repair our ‘facilities’… not to get into too much icky detail, but we had noticed some problems and they needed attention. After several trips to get supplies, they completed the necessary repair.

Our evening plans were to attend the Cody Nite Rodeo. This was our first time to ever attend such an event and it was really fun! The girls both wore their cowgirl hats and we were all whoopin’, hollerin’ and stampin’ our feet while the cowboys and cowgirls did their thing. Michael’s favorite was the bull riding. The girls loved the barrel racing, and I enjoyed the calf-roping (though I did feel a bit sorry for the poor calves who would lie there looking like ‘what in the world just happened to me?!!”). Another thing that I think we all appreciated was that they began the rodeo with a very meaningful invocation—clearly there is no worry here about being ‘politically correct’—the people of Wyoming love God & country and aren’t afraid to say so… very refreshing! After a late night stop at McDonald’s (#7) for free ice cream—courtesy of our campground—we all headed to bed and were out cold in a matter of minutes!

The weather was much improved today—and while I wouldn’t say it was warm, it was significantly warmer than in Yellowstone. We also heard that it rained all day there today so we’re glad that we made the decision to leave. We had originally only planned one night in Cody, but by staying here 2 nights, we were able to have a little ‘down time’ (well, Michael & Ralph would probably disagree about that since they were busy with repairs!).

Tomorrow, we are heading about 80 miles south to the town of Thermopolis, where we will spend the night before picking back up on our original itinerary again. Thermopolis is famous for it’s mineral hot springs—so I’m hoping all the ‘old people’ (yes, me included) will be able to enjoy some of it’s supposed ‘healing benefits’ for achy bones and joints. The high is forecasted to be 75 and sunny—which will be a welcome sight!

Day 10.5—flexibility is my middle name

Okay, so those of you who know me really well are ROTFLOL at that title!! I guess it should say ‘I’m learning to make flexibility my middle name’!! After shivering through Yellowstone for 3 days, the troops were done. Truth be told, we actually had decent weather compared to their previous 2 weeks straight of rain—but we are not really the hardy outdoor type and so sightseeing in the 30 degree temps took its toll. Thanks to some extremely nice people at Xanterra Parks, we were able to cancel our reservations and get a refund of our camping fees. We decided to head out of Yellowstone in the late afternoon with Cody, WY as our destination.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Let me rewind to our EARLY start of the day. We entered Yellowstone before 7 am in order to increase our chances of seeing lots of animals—the common feeling is that the best times are early in the morning or late in the evening when they are the most active. So, to my children’s disgust, I was rousing them from a sound sleep around 6 am—it was fully light outside, so I should have just told them it was 8 am (which technically was true… for Georgia!!).

The highlight of our trip to the Lamar Valley occurred during our stop for breakfast. Thanks to the sharp eyes of some other tourists, we were able to spot a coyote who was out hunting for her own breakfast. She walked about 15 feet in front of us during her hunt—and didn’t seem at all phased by the cars & people stopping to photograph her. She was on a mission! It was really incredible to watch.

After watching the coyote and seeing literally hundreds more of Yellowstone’s bison herd (I am pretty sure we saw nearly 1/2 of the 3000 of them in 3 days!), we headed to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone for lunch and more photo ops.

The girls completed their booklets for their Jr. Ranger badges and were ‘sworn in’ at the Canyon Visitor’s Center. We had a nice chat with the ranger who told us that she’d welcome a few of Georgia’s 90 degree days for a change!

Our trip out of Yellowstone took us on some winding mountain rounds, but Michael handled them like a champ—I’m SO glad he is a willing driver! As proof that winter has not completely left Yellowstone, here is a picture of an almost entirely frozen lake that we drove past!

We arrived in Cody around 6:30 and found a small campground with vacancies. After dinner and a little internet time, we were all in bed around 9—exhausted!

Tomorrow we’ll explore Cody (and make Wal-mart stop #3!) and make plans for another revised itinerary!!