Day: Who Knows🤣

Today is our 15th day of this trip.  Today is Friday and we left out two weeks ago today.  We are officially Ready To Come Home!!!

Daniel and I decided to drop in at a CrossFit gym that we found in Sioux City, Iowa this morning.  It was called Beo and we tried to reach out to the owner last night to ask about coming to a morning class.  She never replied back so we truly “dropped in” on her this morning when we arrived at 6AM. She was very nice though and welcomed us to join in.  We participated in a great workout and enjoyed the company of the nice folks there.  

Once we finished, we headed back to the hotel and we all got ready and ate breakfast. We hit the road and had nothing planned for the day except driving as far as we can to get home.  

What is interesting about this area is that even though we are in Iowa, We are driving down the interstate next to the Missouri River and Nebraska is just across the river. We never entered into Nebraska, even when we traveled right through Omaha (or outskirts of it). We crossed the Missouri River several times. We stopped outside of Kansas City, MO to eat at Chik-fil-a for lunch.  It’s been a while since we’ve seen one and boy have we missed it.  

I drove the afternoon and took us through St. Louis.  Originally, we had planned to stop and see the Arch, even ride the team to the top, but we just wanted to keep going and get closer to getting home.  We actually went to the Arch on our road trip 10 years ago. You can look back in the archives of this blog to read about it.  Now, Annessa, Andrew and Logan did stop in St. Louis and went up in the arch.  

We ate dinner outside of St. Louis in O’Fallon, Illinois. We ate at a place called Lion’s Choice.  It was similar to Arby’s in that they had roast beef sandwiches but the taste was a little different.  It was good. Maybe we will have one open down south closer to home sometime in the future.  We had talked about staying the night here, driving a little further south to Paducah, KY to stay or just keep driving (we were 6.5 hours from home and it was 5:00.  We voted and decided to drive to Paducah, 2.5 hours more.  So that’s what we are doing now.  When we get up in the morning, we will have around 4 hours to drive home.  

It’s been a great trip with lots of memories made, lots of laughs, a few tears, lots of food, skinned up knees, upset stomachs, sore muscles and tons of photos to document all the great things we’ve seen and done. Thanks to all of you who have followed along and especially for the prayers for our safety.  A HUGE shoutout to my mom and Daniel’s for taking care of our house, Thor and checking the garden.  Thanks to Tyler Darling for mowing our grass. Thanks to Eli Cryer for taking good care of our chickens and sending us daily pics of them.  😌

Until the next road trip…..Adios Amigos!!❤️❤️❤️

Day Fourteen: Badlands and Wall Drug

We started the day off today by participating in the 6 am CrossFit class at Rushmore CF. Daniel, Annessa and I enjoyed this class very much.  They have a really neat gym, decorated in patriotic colors and even had a mural wall with the presidents working out.  Our instructor was Spanish (he spoke good English) and was very helpful.  Everyone there was nice and inviting.  

Afterwards, we packed up and headed out to see the Badlands.  This was our last National Park to go into.  It’s truly like being on a different planet once you enter. It was so very hot, so we didn’t do much getting out there.  

Everyone will tell you that if you are in this area, you have to stop at Wall Drug, so that’s where we planned to eat lunch.  It was huge and so crowded.  But we ate and picked up some quick souvenirs.  We can now say that we’ve been there but will be fine if we never go back.  LOL.

We continued on to Sioux Falls, SD.  Originally, this is where we planned to stay the night before continuing on to St. Louis to see the Arch.  But I think we have all reached that point where we are just ready to wrap up this trip and get home. So we ate our dinner here at Cracker Barrel (yes, we are from the south) and gassed up.  Annessa, Logan and Andrew decided to drive past Kansas City before stopping.  We decided to drive another hour to Sioux City, Iowa and stopping for the night.  So we hugged and wished each other safe travels from here til hone.  

Day Thirteen: Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Custer State Park

We started the day by getting up and heading to Mt. Rushmore.  We got there before it got too hot and too crowded.  It was so surreal to walk up and see something so big and something that you have seen so many times on TV, in books and other people’s photos. It just isn’t the same until you see it yourself.  We walked the trail around it, getting to see the President faces at all different angles.  We took lots of photos and got our souvenirs (probably the largest souvenir store we had been in up to this point).  

Next we were off to see the Crazy Horse memorial.  Again, we had a short history lesson on the drive there. This monument isn’t finished yet.  It will take a long time to complete and it’s being done with limited funding.  But it cost us $35 to park so maybe we helped fund this project a little.  😉

Next we headed into the town of Custer to eat lunch at the Black Hills Burger & Bun Co. we heard they had the best bison burgers.  And we would have to agree!  So good!!  After lunch, we headed into the Custer State Park, hoping to see wild life.  We did see several bison, deer and some prairie dogs.  

We had planned to drive straight into the Wind Cave National Park from here and we did start into it but it was taking us a while to get to the entrance and visitor center    We were all getting tired so we opted to head back to our house.  We were an hour away by this time so it was kinda tiring getting back.  We opted to order pizza in and hang out at the house for the remainder of the night.  This was a good idea.  We ate, worked on our scrapbooks, watched a devotional on FB live and then a movie.  

Day Twelve: Goodbye Montana; Hello South Dakota

We didn’t wake up as early as usual to get on the road, but after a good breakfast at the hotel, we got started. Our plan was to drive 4.5 hours to South Dakota. We passed by the monument at the Little Bighorn Battlefield, so we had a little history lesson on the car while driving through. We drove through the Northern Cheyenne Tribe territory. Later we passed through Custer National Forest which seemed to have more burnt trees from fires than growing trees. We crossed over the top of Wyoming and then into South Dakota!  Our plan was to stop at Spearfish Canyon and see some waterfalls.  When we got into town, we decided to go eat first!  We stopped at Barccoas for burritos (it was similar to Bubbaritos). We had been told to get ice cream from Leone’s Creamery while there but found out they are closed on Tuesdays.  However, we happened to be shopping at a store that had a freezer full of individual pints so we did get to try some!

Afterwards we started to go see the waterfalls in Spearfish Canyon but realized they were pretty dry and figured there wouldn’t be much water falling to see.  So we went ahead and took the short drive to Deadwood.   This is a western town where “Wild Bill” Hickok was shot and killed.  Calamity Jane also walked those streets.  We enjoyed getting out and walking up and down the Main Street and getting some souvenirs.  

Next we took a drive through Sturgis where everything is centered around motorcycles. We didn’t spend much time here.  We were ready to get to Rapid City and find our house we were staying in.  I’ve not talked much about our places we’ve stayed in other than hotels.  For the main parks and this area, we planned to stay over two nights so we could see more things.  We used VRBO and Air B&B to find those places.  You don’t know for sure what you will get each time.  But for us, each place served a purpose for us and we were mostly happy. We were glad to get to do our laundry in these places and spread out a little. This last place was a house in a neighborhood in Rapid City.  It was probably the nicest place we stayed in.  We were very comfortable there. We settled in and then went to a neat little place for dinner called Greasy’s Burgers. . After dinner, we went to the downtown area and walked around until dark.  They had statues of all the presidents. We had fun trying to guess the President as we walked up to them.  And taking pictures with them.  

Day Eleven: Leaving Yellowstone

Well, rule #1 with road trips like this:  you gotta be flexible. As mentioned in the last post, our plan today was to go back in the park and drive up to Mammoth then over through Tower-Roosevelt and Lamar Valley.  We would exit the park and take the Beartooth Parkway into Montana through Red Lodge and then on to Billings.  However, when we arrived in West Yellowstone there was terrible traffic delays and it appeared it was all traffic that was trying to reach the park entrance. We sat there for nearly an hour without moving very far.  So we decided to forego our planned route to take another way around. This route took us north up the edge of Wyoming into Montana. 

We traveled through Bozeman and ate lunch here.  They have a really neat downtown…I would love to come back and spend time walking and shopping along the streets of downtown.  (adding that to my list)

Getting closer to Billings I looked down at my watch to see that the current temperature is 103!  When we left the cabin this morning, it was 65. Crazy!  We got to our hotel much earlier since we altered our route.  It was 2pm and hot!!!  We all opted to hang out here and rest.  Daniel worked some. The rest of us just chilled for awhile.  At 4 pm, it was 108 outside.  Today became a recovery day that we hadn’t even planned but needed. 

We ended our day with a big dinner (complete with sweet tea!) at Cracker Barrel!  We’ve been looking forward to an opportunity to eat here and finally stopped in a city big enough to have one.  Sorry I don’t have too many pics for today. Tomorrow, we head into South Dakota. 

Day Ten: Worship and Yellowstone NP-Norris, Canyon Village and Mammoth Hot Springs

We have been blessed with really great weather and today was no different. We woke, we had a big breakfast that Annessa cooked and headed out to worship with the congregation at West Yellowstone church of Christ. They were a small but very nice bunch.  Some of their members were on vacation and there were other families visiting like us, so we actually outnumbered the members.  We even met another family there from Alabama!  The Dobbs family were also visiting and were from the Wood Avenue church in Florence.  

After services, we stopped at the store for a few more drinks and ice, had a PBJ picnic and then headed back into Yellowstone for day two.  On our itinerary was to see the waterfalls at the “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone “ in Canyon Village and then travel north to Mammoth Hot Springs where we would get into the Boiling River (hot springs that empty into the cold Gardiner River and make nice spots to sit in). 

We made it to the Falls after a quick stop at the Norris Geyser Basin area. We took the 600ft drop in elevation walk down to the observation area of the Lower Falls.  So beautiful!!  We even saw a rainbow at the bottom.  The walk back up was tough but not too bad.  Again, thankful for all the squats and lunges we have done at Brandy’s  to build up those leg muscles!

We continued our trek north to Mammoth and saw several bison and elk along the way.  The best way to spot wildlife is watch for all the cars in front of you to be stopped in the road!  We even came upon one bison walking down the middle of the road.  I was driving and he walked right past my window.  

We arrived in the Mammoth area and thought it was a beautiful place in Yellowstone.  I was much surprised at how it was almost like a little community.  We drove through since we were trying to get to that spot if the River but unfortunately, they had it closed so we were unable to take a dip in the boiling river.  I’m sure the locals know if other spots where we could do the same thing.  I think we were all kinda tired and hungry so we weren’t too disappointed.  We quickly changed our plans and decided to grab dinner in the Mammoth area.  We found a Grill and ordered some hamburgers and fries then ate them outside at a picnic table.  

I drove us back to our cabin. To give you an idea of how huge this park is, we stayed in a cabin that was 30 minutes away from the entrance at West Yellowstone. When we left Mammoth, it took us almost two hours to get back to the cabin.  In order to leave out on Monday morning, we will drive back to Mammoth and then across to Tower-Roosevelt and across Lamar Valley until we get to the Northeast Entrance.  That will take us probably 3-4 hours.  I’ll let you know!!

Day Nine: Yellowstone National Park-Old Faithful

Once again, we all woke up early this morning so that we can pack up our things and get on the road, headed north to Yellowstone.  We drove about 2 hours before we arrived in West Yellowstone and made our way to the entrance of the park. We had decided to go straight to Old Faithful to see it first.  When we arrived we all went to the Visitor Center/General Store first so we could use the restrooms.  While some of us waited in line for the ladies room, the others shopped.  When I came out I was right beside the ice cream counter and saw they had Huckleberry Floats!  I had to get one.  It was made with Huckleberry soda, a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of Huckleberry Fudge!  So good!!  The lady at the counter pointed out that Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt at 10:27 and it was 10:18, so we all hurried across the way to get there right before eruption.  It was so neat to see it in person.  It was much bigger than I had imagined it.    We walked around that area and saw more of the geysers. I guess I also didn’t realize there were so many of them and other geothermal spots.  Like nature’s boiling pots.  

We left that area and headed to the Grand Prismatic area.  I think this spot was my favorite!  So many pretty colors.  It’s so amazing how God created our earth and what all it can do.  From seeing still frozen areas in Glacier to seeing forests recovering from wildfires and then these areas of water coming out of the ground at extremely high temperatures ….it all goes to show that the earth can take care of itself and that is how God intended it to be!

We were pretty tired after seeing these places.  We rode around and made a few more stops before deciding to head to our cabin.  We booked a place in Island Park which is 30 minutes south of Yellowstone.  While driving there, Amelia mentioned how good spaghetti would be for supper.  Daniel agreed so we stopped at a supermarket on our way and got all we needed.  We enjoyed a supper at the cabin and then spent time playing games and such.  

Day Eight: Great Teton National Park

If you aren’t an early riser, this trip may not be for you! 😂 We woke up around 5 AM today so that we could get a head start getting into the Great Teton National Park.  And how glad I am that we did!  We had already decided that the main things we wanted to see/do while in the park were Jenny Lake and Mormon Row.  We started out at Jenny Lake. When we arrived, we easily found a place to park at the Visitor’s Center.  It wasn’t too crowded and much of the trail was shaded.  He ended up hiking for almost 7 miles (the kids did almost 9!) and saw some of the most beautiful sights.  This trail had it all:  mountains, lakes, evergreens, glaciers, waterfalls and spots where we could take in all the scenery at once.  We even caught a glimpse of a Momma bear and one of her cubs.  Annessa and Logan actually walked up on some bears in their path!

When we got back to our vehicle, it was noon and getting hot.  It was also getting crowded.  People were having to park miles down the road and then walking to where we were.  This is why I’m glad we got up early.  We ate our PBJ lunches and then drove over to Mormon Row.  It was pretty but not as climatic as I expected.  We took our pictures from our windows of the expedition.  We were all so tired and did t want to get out and walk anymore. 

We went back to the cabin and all took naps. After resting, we left and ate at a local Mexican restaurant in Driggs.  Down the road from there was the Teton Valley Rodeo.  We had a fun time and where else could we see a rodeo with the Tetons in the background!  It was a beautiful night.  Our last night at this cabin before heading up to Yellowstone in the morning.