melted

even after a slow morning, the kiddo was totally melted today. between sturgis and mt Rushmore, she was about 2 feet tall in the seat of the car, and only able to speak in single syllables.

s'ok tho. kinda expected a melted day, and we just continues at a relaxed pace, kept it simple (first mc donalds lunch stop!), and didn't rush anything. it was good for me to slow down for a day as well. I just decided not to worry bout timing, and enjoy the last of the big landmarks we planned to visit.

sturgis motorcycle museum

before we could leave town, christina was excited to visit the motorcycle museum (first museum she begged to goto, how could I pass that up?), and pick out a t-shirt for her dad. even i got a hat, and some fun stickers. it may not be rally week, but it's a cool little town none the less.

relaxing morning (for a change!)

we have been pushing on all day everyday for the past week, and I realized how pooped we both were when we got to the hotel last night. we have a lit of miles to cover yet, but we also needed to a morning to relax.

having a lazy morning today. we slept in, and got up with just enough time to get to breakfast. I'm catching up on the blog (this last post will make us up-to-date), and Christina is happily swimming in the pool. going to sit our butts in the hotel room until 11am when we have to check out. :)

from here (sturgis, SD), we are going to head south to mt Rushmore, then out to the badlands for the afternoon. I am going to try to make the border of SD and MN tonight, but am not going to push it. weekday is for relaxing and enjoying. we will push some miles out again tomorrow. :)

road trip car entertainment!

Christina has been awesome keeping herself entertained in the car. when she is not blogging or writing postcards, we have been playing road trip scavenger hunt games, she is doodling on the iPod, making music with jelly band, dj'ing with our IPods, or chatting. I can't believe how much time goes by!

crossing Wyoming

Wyoming is a really gorgeous and diverse state! we went from the red rocks in Cody across the plaines, then through and over the big horn mountains which were amazing and unexpected. crossing in, they were tight rock canyons with signs all along the way about the ancient rock formations. in the middle of the mountains, we did a stretch stop and walked around to look at some waterfalls. it was really hot out, until we crossed up over the 9,000 foot pass where it went down to a lovely 65.

the scenery was amazing, but it proved to be a LONG day in the car. we both were super loopy by the time we rolled into the hotel at 9pm. 11 hours in the car was way to long! it was a saving grace that the hotel pool stayed open late, so we wound down with a swim, soak in the hot tub and shower before bed.

Cody, WY

stopped for lunch at a little cafe in Cody, WY, of buffalo bill and Annie Oakley fame. it was a stark transition from the park to come down into the hot red rock landscape.

after lunch, we popped into a miniature wild west museum. fun to look at the exhibit... for about 7 1/2 minutes. after 6 big days of touring, attention spans are waning. it was a bummer to have to pass on the old west town (original buildings and cemetery from the original Cody settlement), but we just didn't have the time.

over lunch, we finally got some of our blog posts uploaded. yay! I also dove into the maps to figure out the plan for the day. I had scheduled to make it to the badlands to camp, but had totally underestimated how long it would take to cross Wyoming! made a quick decision to haul to SD and stay in a hotel so we could hit mt. Rushmore and the badlands with fresh energy in the am. this plan was met with rave reviews for the opportunity to shower after 3 days of camping. it was the promise of the pool with a water slide that kept the sanity for the long car ride!!

leaving Yellowstone...

can't believe it is already day 7 of our trip! we packed up our camp this am, and were on the road around 9:30am. took us a few hours to cross through and drive out of Yellowstone over the gorgeous mountain pass to the east entrance. Yellowstone is truly an amazing, diverse and enormous park. we barely scratched the surface in two full days. I left looking forward to the next time I return to continue exploring!

night three camping

again, we got back to the campground tired and saturated. there were spotty rain showers throughout the day, but cleared up as we got back to the tent.

we made another delicious dinner of cucumber, tomato, pepper salad, with scampi pasta and sausages. yum! christina is becoming quite a cooking helper. she chopped most of the veggies for the salad on her own. all 10 fingers accounted for. it was auntie robin who got a little cut with the sharp knife. ha.

we wound down the evening sitting by the lake for a bit, then snuggled up in the mosquito-free tent and watched the Yellowstone video before bed.

another furry addition to the trip

auntie robin is a sucker for a happy co-pilot. all the park stores were showing a cute fuzzy buffalo, the original one Christina fell in love with. after many park gift shops, we left the last one with a park membership (donation), and a "free" buffalo for Christina and Yellowstone video for me.

I must say, the buffalos are happy traveling companions, and the new "buffalo sauce" seems to get along quite well with "buffalo wings". ;)

postcard queen!

christina has kept quite busy in the car writing out postcards to share her adventures with all her friends and family. we dropped another 20 into the mail on Sunday! hope y'all are enjoying receiving them.

auntie robin has written out 2 so far. so far behind, but loving passing on my favorite travel tradition to Christina! :)

animal sightings

driving around Yellowstone is full of spontaneous animal sightings. I think these were some of Christina's favorite sights! throughout this second day in the park, we saw white pelicans, more mule deer, big buck elk with huge antlers, a ton of buffalo, and we even saw a grizzly bear off in the distance across a river. we have a lot of pics of these on the "good camera" that we will need to post at a later date!

Christina is developing quite a keen eye for spotting animals, as well as photographing them! auntie robin is just happy that she volunteers to carry the big camera all the time. ;)

the landscape of the park changes so much as you drive through. we saw a lot of wildlife out on these green plaines.

sulphur cauldron, dragons mouth and mud volcano

we meandered our way back towards camp, making a few more stops to see some of the geothermal features. the sulphur cauldrons were bubbling awesomeness, with a buffalo chillin nearby. the dragons mouth cave was cool... it steamed and hissed, and made growling noises. and the mud volcano was a gurgling mud pool spitting.

more views of the falls and canyon

from the amazing lower falls, we drive around the edge of the canyon to several view points, and upper falls. each spot was more amazing than the last.

brink of lower falls

we started our second day in yellowstone by heading up to yellowstone lake and the grand canyon of yellowstone. after a quick lunch picnic we headed out for a hike down to the brink of lower falls. the trail descended 650 over 3/8 of a mile. when we got down there it was an amazing standing over the falls and looking over the canyon. then we had to hike back up. christina was so pooped by the time we reached the top.

totally wiped out!

by the time we got back to camp, it was almost 7pm and we were totally wiped out!

we made a super yummy dinner of broccoli cheddar soup with Italian sausages, and gobbled it down. after we did our clean-up, we had some time to sit and relax by the lake, and play a few games of cards before bed.

more geothermal features

we were pretty beat from our explorations around old faithful, but there was more to see. we continued north, and drove by some more awesome features, and made a few stops to do quick walks. the sights just got more and more amazing!

we saw [excelsior??], great prismatic, firepot road, and ended at the paint pot mud pits.