We were on the road by about 6:20AM this morning-making our way out of Rapid City and back to never-ending Rt 90. Harry Potter got us through hours and hours as we drove through Wyoming, mostly looking at massive barren hills that were gradually turning into mountains. We felt like we might run into a covered wagon at any moment. Eventually we began to see the mountains ahead of us. Massive, snow covered peaks that started out basically the color of the sky and then began to become clearer. Eventually, we went off 90 and took a route that literally wound through the mountains. For about an hour, maybe two, we drove up and around windy mountain roads, getting higher and higher. The view was mind-blowing. We paused once to take a some pictures, but mostly eric tried to capture what we were passing as I drove. The road leveled out again as we cleared the first set of mountains- we were in the Bighorn Mountains. We came back to good old Rt 90.
Around 2 or 3, after like 9 hours of driving, we got to Yellowstone. The mountains had been massively rising as we got closer, and after entering the park we were pretty much blown away. Huge mountains, ridiculously blue mountain streams and lakes- not to mention Yellowstone Lake which is enormous and might as well be a small ocean. We stopped first along the shore of this lake, amazed at how massive it was. It has waves too- more waves than Lake Michigan had had, because it was quite windy off the lake. Today may have been the most beautiful day ever- I can't imagine better weather for this drive.
At one point while driving through the Yellowstone loop, we noticed the few cars ahead of us had stopped. Much to my delight- there was a Bison in the middle of the road! I have pretty much been obsessed with seeing bison ever since we saw a sign about them back in the Badlands. Everytime eric and i drove past cows or any kind of animal we basically pretended they were bison. This was our first real sighting! It was really big and awesome and just walking very slowly along the road.
Speaking of wildlife- we received a lot of information on entering the park about the wildlife in Yellowstone. There are bison, elk, bears, wolves and a lot more. In case you are ever in the wildlife here are some tips :)
Make lots of noise while hiking so that the bears can hear you! Seriously. Eric and I plan on singing a lot tomorrow if we walk through the park :)
Don't try to outrun bears- apparently they can run over 40 miles per hour. And they can climb trees too, so don't do that either. Your best bet is to play dead. And then I guess it eats you, I don't know.
Also, according to a lovely flyer we got that pictured a Buffalo impaling a human, buffalo can gorge you. So watch out.
Anyway, our next stop in Yellowstone park was Old Faithful, obvi. We arrived at a good time, people were just sitting and preparing for its next performance. I guess these days Old Faithful goes off about every 90 minutes. Apparently the time interval has changed significantly due to changes in the earth, and also from tourists throwing stuff in her, according to signs, (and probably global warming too. Just throwing that out there. :P )
Anyway, we waited for about a half an hour, while O.F. steamed. Then she gave off several false alarms- spurting a little bit and then going back to steaming. I thought maybe she had performance anxiety/stage fright- eric thinks she has a flair for the dramatic and likes to get people all excited first. Every time she went off, everyone got all camera-ready and stuff, and then it would stop and we'd all sigh. This happened several times, and then finally (after some encouragement on my and Eric's part, I think, we were chanting "old faith-ful! old faith-ful!)
she went! It was amazing. Actually so cool. Tomorrow we might try to check out some more geysers because they're pretty much awesome.
Ok by the time all of this was over, it was 5:30 ish. So we headed out of Yellowstone- stopping again to watch a herd of elk cross the road, and found our KOA campsite. KOA is amazing. We have a cute little site with our tent all set up (which we are pros at, by the way), we had a great dinner, did some laundry, took warm showers and have free wi-fi! All in the middle of bear country! How cool! :)
Eric is updating our map- we are about 3/4 of the way across the country. Pretty awesome. All in all, I think the past two days have been very very exciting. We saw amazing stuff that we've never gotten a chance to experience before- everybody needs to do this. period.
After today's long drive, however, I think we might take it a bit easier tomorrow. We're planning on going back into the park in the morning and "hiking" which, by hiking, we of course mean driving around and occasionally getting out and walking a few yards, then returning to the safety of our bear-proof car :P
And with that, we now say goodnight!
xox
Laura and Eric
No comments:
Post a Comment