After saying adieu to Mike's cousins in Moline, we headed west with a destination of Mt Rushmore. Now, in my 29 years prior to this trip I never particularly cared whether I saw Mt Rushmore or not, but when looking at the map and roughly planning this journey, I thought the grand monument might be fun to see. After all, what road trip is really complete until you see a large sculpture of four of our great presidents carved into a rock in the middle of nowhere? Plus, having not stopped at the Four Corners at the beginning of our trip (I really wanted a photo of Bailey, looking irritated and embarrassed of course, with each of her four paws in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico), I wanted to make sure Mt Rushmore wasn't as easily bypassed. The problem with the Mt Rushmore location however is that it's miles and miles from anything worth seeing; the plains are beautiful, don't get me wrong, but there are so many hours of seeing plain after plain that it just gets "plain" boring :) Luckily for us, a couple entrepreneurs years ago realized how dreadful of a ride this was and started some awfully interesting stops along the 815 mile drive.
Stop 1: The Mitchell Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Honestly, I don't know much about this building except that it's covered in dried corn and that the corn is replaced yearly. Crazily enough, they started this tradition about 100 years ago. Apparently corn has been quite the staple for the Midwest for years... Nevertheless, it's a good stop to stretch your legs.
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| Day 76, Stop #1: The Mitchell Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD. This is about exciting as it gets here folks. |
Stop #2: Wall Drug Store in Wall, South Dakota. What makes this drug store such a tourist destination has got to be the billboards stretching for 300 miles up and down I-90 prior to this town. Seriously, there are a lot of billboards.
Wall Drug itself is basically just a huge store; it's part amusement park and part Walmart, but overpriced and done in the fashion of an old western town. The actual store takes up about 2 city blocks, which means the rest of the town is just banking off it's popularity as a destination. Not bad--no advertising costs and all the profits.
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| Day 76, Stop #2: Wall Drug Store, Wall, SD. The free ice water given at Wall Drug is about as exciting as it gets here. |
Unfortunately Mitchell, SD, and Wall, SD, are pretty close to one another, and also, close to Mt Rushmore, so the last 300 miles from Moline, IL, to Mt Rushmore are relatively "stimulating". As a master planner back in the 1900s, I would've have spaced all this excitement more evenly over the 800 miles so as to give modern-day travelers something to look forward to every four hours...But alas, we made it to Mt Rushmore.
Having seen the monument, I probably won't need to take future vacations to the Black Hills, which means our parking pass is up for grabs for the remaining 2012 year if anyone is interested. All kidding aside, although I will happily sell our *overpriced* parking pass at a ridiculously low rate, it was very impressive for the scale in which it was carved.
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| Day 77: Mt Rushmore National Monument, Keystone, SD. |
On the edge of Mt Rushmore (and Crazyhorse, another granite monument which we saw but were too cheap to pay for), is a great state park called Custer State Park. It's a little expensive after all the non-resident and day-use fees, but it's a nice place to camp, swim and take in the local wildlife. We only spent one night in the area, but we got a great campsite just steps from a cold, fresh lake, and in the morning we took a drive through the Wildlife Loop where we saw pronghorn antelope and the world's largest publicly-owned herd of bison, and where we were accosted by a herd of greedy burrows.
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| Day 78: The Wildlife Loop, Custer State Park, Custer, SD. For a fee, usually a carrot, this burrow/road-keeper will let you pass. |
After another long day of driving, we finally we made it to Yellowstone National Park, the first National Park established. I've heard great things about the park, and of course, have been interested in seeing Old Faithful, but I'm not sure we visited at the right time. Apparently the park has been through a few natural disasters in the past 20 years and isn't the same: a huge wind storm first came through in the late 1980s, and then a fire in the mid 1990s. A loss of so many trees killed off a large number of their moose and has made some of the valleys of the park a little unsightly. Yes, it's the course nature takes, but if anyone is using this blog as a guide for your future vacation, let me recommend pushing back your visit a few years. I'm sure with a little more time for regrowth, the park will be up to par with Yosemite (and yes, I'm biased).
Besides my disappointment in not stumbling upon a moose, we did see plenty of bison, which are truly a site, and male and female elk. Unfortunately or fortunately, as I haven't decided, we did not see any bear. In fact, I'm thoroughly impressed with the way in which the Park Service handles humans in the home of so many wild and dangerous animals. The rangers are extremely strict with visitors to the park to store one's food and personal items properly to eradicate any dependency the wildlife could develop with humans.
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| Day 79, am: Yellowstone National Park. This bull was just walking along the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, we saw his herd a few miles down the road, so we figured he just took the scenic route. |
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| Day 79, pm: Yellowstone National Park. Bailey chillin' in front of Old Faithful. Nothing new for this US traveler. |
Since Yellowstone is so close to the Grand Tetons, we took a day trip through the gorgeous park. Here the foliage changes within a handful of miles from the lodge pole pines of Yellowstone to groves of quaking aspen, birch, and various conifers, not to mention a plethora of wild berries, in the Grand Tetons. With wide empty meadows and soaring mountains, the park is absolutely breathtaking--I wish we could have been there in the fall! Plus, at the south entrance of the Tetons, sits the quaint town of Jackson, Wyoming.
Having expected a much snootier town, I was surprised how down to earth people were there. It is very touristy, with lots of souvenir shops, but a couple blocks off the main square we found some some great stores and a nice outdoor, vegetarian restaurant where everything was decently priced. The only downside of our day trip was when we got in a minor fender bender (not our fault thank god!) and when Bailey was attacked by a non-leash-wearing shepherd mix. We were all a little shaken after our run-ins, but thankfully we had the Grand Tetons to drive through again so we instantly relaxed.
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| Day 80: Grand Teton National Park. A calm beginning to a hectic day. |
Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks were worth seeing, but were really time-killers in our overall journey, as a visit to our friend in Whitefish, Montana, and Glacier National Park were our real destinations post-Mt Rushmore. So after visiting another stinky geothermal site in Yellowstone, we packed up and headed out of the park and into Montana.
Now here is where it really occurred to me how desolate the Wild West is. All along the drive to NW Montana I was thinking about the cowboys of the 1800s: how in the world could they live in such vastness? How did they know how to get to the nearest "town"? The Wild West is HUGE and WILD! And those men and women were tough.
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| Day 81: Saying goodbye to Yellowstone NP and hello to Montana. |
*Travel tip: Go visit Montana!
I was unprepared how much I'd like Montana, and I am not what anyone would call an outdoors-woman. I don't like dirt, I don't like to be cold, and I don't like heights. You have to prepare yourself for all of those things when traveling to Montana. The whole state is just a huge wilderness carved from a glacier thousands of years ago: dense green forests, huge jutting mountains, crystal clear water, sparse civilization. It really is God's country. So go.
Our first day in Montana was spent learning to fly fish. Our friend Dylan took us on his raft down the Flathead River where Mike spent the afternoon casting hour after hour and I held Bailey back from jumping in after his line hour after hour. (Where I lack in outdoor-woman abilities, Bailey makes up for...) It was a peaceful day spent catching up with our good college friend, enjoying PB&J sandwiches, sitting in the sun and wading in the freezing water. Sadly it wasn't a day for fishing, but both Mike and Dylan did catch (and release) a fish each. And the highlight was that we wore out Bailey--not an easy feat.
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| Day 82: The middle fork of the Flathead River, Flathead National Forest, MT. The ladies sunbathing. |
One of the best things about Glacier is it's size--it's actually manageable. To see the sites, you don't have to spend all day driving from one side of the park to the other as you do in Yosemite or Yellowstone. However because of it's size there are also not the modern conveniences that you tend to get accustomed to as a traveler. Like a gas station.
Well, our first day in Glacier was a little of a bust. We took our time leaving Whitefish in the morning and leisurely rolled into Glacier National Park by early afternoon. We checked out the spectacular lobby of McDonald Lodge and then had a tasty, local lunch within it's Swiss-inspired architecture. We then set off for our hike via Going-To-The-Sun road, which by it's title suggests a climb. Well, despite my suggestion of getting gas before we entered the park, my lovely husband "misread" the gas gauge and up we went to Going-To-The-Sun road. And about quarter-way up the terrifying road, Mike states I was right to have suggested getting gas and that he didn't think we'd make it to the top....eeek!! Then half-way up we turned around and coasted down the mountain. Thankfully the clouds came in just as we reached the base of the mountain and looking up at the menacing clouds, we decided the gods were on our side in forcing us to retreat. So instead of the hike we stopped to read and watercolor and enjoy the calm of the valley, then proceeded safely to a gas station to ensure we got home ok.
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| Day 83: McDonald Lodge, Glacier National Park, MT. Our first experience of the "Swiss" American Alps. |
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| Day 83, evening: McDonald Creek, Glacier National Park. Looking at Going-To-The-Sun road. |
Our second attempt up Going-To-The-Sun road proved much more successful, however a little bit scary, too. The road is frightful not due to it's steepness, which it's not, but the simple fact you are on a road no bigger than the width of two cars (sometimes it's not even that wide!) and you are roughly 5000 feet from the valley. Add in some thunder, lightning and rain, and it gets even sketchier. Thankfully the heavens didn't open completely until we were safely parked at the top...
Having had lunch in the car, we waited out the storm comfortably while others around us were scrambling for cover. Once the heart of the storm past through, we bundled up and braved the rain, wind and 45 degree temperatures to make the final ascent to Hidden Lake. Despite an uncomfortable first half of the hike, we made it to the top only to be greeted by two mountain goats perched on a cliff sunbathing. All and all, the cold was a small price to pay for such a beautiful hike. Glacier is amazingly so similar to what you'd see in the Italian/Swiss Alps. And to think, this beauty is within our own backyard!
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| Day 84: Hidden Lake trail, Glacier National Park. A peaceful run-in with some of the locals. |
From the American Alps to the Northwest...
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