It wouldn't be a National Park if it was ugly. (Aug 4)

I was startled awake by the sound of a fire alarm. That's right, the fire alarm went off in our hotel. It reminded me of college when we used to getting woken up because someone burned popcorn in their microwave except this alarm wasn't as loud. My first thought was it's a drill, but then I thought... They don't have fire drills in hotels. I hopped out of bed and was so flustered I didn't know what to do! I made sure Nate was awake before trying to grab my purse. We get down the stairs and almost outside when everyone starts walking in. Confused because the alarm was still going off, but someone clarified and said that a little boy had pulled the alarm in the lobby. I hope that boy got a spanking. Since we were up, we took advantage of the continental breakfast. They had everything! Eggs, sausage, cereal, fruit, bagels, muffins, and my favorite, waffles. Complete with waffle bar. Chocolate chips, blueberries, cinnamon, powdered sugar, you name it they had it. After breakfast we went back up to the room to nap for a little bit longer before heading out for Crater Lake.

It's a fun game for me, not knowing what any of these places will look like. I never know what to expect and am never disappointed by all of the different combinations that can be made with mountains, trees, and water. This one was my favorite. However, once we got into the park driving was frustrating. There was no shoulder at all, just two lanes and then a cliff. I almost felt like I was driving a course on Mario Kart... except it was real life and there would be no turtle in a magical cloud with a fishing pole to pull me out if I drove off the cliff. Nevertheless, we made it to the visitors center, got our cancellation for the passport and pressed a penny but decided to wait on the patch because it was really boring and we're hoping to find a better one online. One of the workers told us that the gift shop with the good patches was closed which was disappointing. We took a walk to an exhibit nearby to learn more about Crater Lake. First thing we learned is that Crater Lake did not get it's name from a crater, but it was actually a volcano that blew it's top and then collapsed to form the caldera. The water came from rain and snow and was a beautiful blue. We drove around the top of the lake stopping at various points to take pictures.

Around sunset we ended up back by the visitors center and listened to a guy play the guitar and sing. He introduced himself as Stan Pollmann and said that he was one of Compassion International's independent artists. He was fun to talk to and get to know even though the mosquitos were out and as pesky as ever.

We wanted to get a little closer to Redwood National Park so we drove to Mt. Ashland in Klamoth National Forest to camp for the night. It was hard to find and we didn't have any idea what we were looking for. But once we got there we found that the wind was horrendous! If we didn't have a hold on the tent it would have blown off the mountain.

Habituated Mountain Goats (Aug 3)

Woke up, packed up the tent and drove to Olympic National Park's visitors center. When we first got to Olympic I wasn't very impressed by the scenery, probably because it was dark and all I could see was that there were trees. By the time we had driven to the top of the mountain I understood why it was a national park. It was a beautiful view. You could even see the snow on top of the mountains. There was a funny notification posted at the visitors center that talked about how the mountain goats were starting to become habituated and would follow people around and wait for them to urinate because they enjoy tasting salty things. I'm glad that didn't happen to us. But, if it did I would know to make lots of noise and scare it away and hope that it didn't charge us. We left the park and drove down the coastal highway which I also wasn't very impressed by at first until we started driving closer to the shore. There was so must fog on the water but it was still gorgeous to take peeks at through the trees as we whizzed by.

It was a long trip from Olympic but we wanted to see the sea lion cave before it closed so we didn't make any stops along the way except for dinner. We made it just in time, I was a little surprised that there were people behind us yet. Because it was evening most of the sea lions were outside the cave on the rocks. It was so neat to listen to them roar! Inside the cave there was a few rolling around on a rock and I liked watching them on the TV that they had connected to a camera zoomed in on them. They had a lot of good information about how the cave was discovered in the 1800s and sea lions in general. There was also a light house that was under renovation so we were not able to see it.

We weren't sure where we were going to sleep that night, and Nate said that he was tired and just wanted to get a hotel, and I wasn't about to complain! Priceline has been great for giving us good deals and didn't let us down this time. We got a Marriott Renaisance business suite. So it had the normal bedroom and bathroom of a hotel, plus a kitchen and living room. We enjoyed relaxing on the couch watching the Olympics with the rest of the world before going to bed.

Nothing but Blue Skies (Aug 2)

Not much exciting today. We both had a great night's sleep at the hotel. While we got up and ready we watched the Olympics, worked on our game plan for the next few days, packed up and headed out for lunch at Jack in the Box. Today we are working our way to Olympic National Park. Washington has some amazing scenery. So amazing that Nate has had me develop a new skill of hanging out the car window going 65 miles an hour and getting a decent shot. Like this...  

This is what it looks like going the other way.

We got caught in Seattle rush hour traffic but we did get to drive in the HOV lane. Garmin played a nasty trick on us and included taking the ferry as part of it's instructions. We drove up to the ferry in it's directions. We were confused and said, “Is this right?” I hopped out and talked with a crossing guard and found out that we did indeed need to take the ferry. She told us this ferry was full and the next one was at 7:40. She gave us directions to the ticket booth but there was a detour so we had trouble finding it. Eventually everything worked out and we drove onto the ferry, turned off the car, and walked up to the observation deck. It was freezing so I had to go back to the car to get a jacket. But all things considered it was fun to explore the ship. Most of the people were obviously locals, they stayed in their cars playing on the smart phones, taking a nap, or tweezing their chin. There was even one guy who had a lawn chair with him and set it out at the back of the ship to read. Besides our license plate, we must have stuck out like a sore thumb with the smile of excitement on my face. We followed the line of cars off the ferry and stopped at a grocery store for some fresh apples and peaches. We made it into the park after dark but easily found ourselves a campsite and pitched the tent. I was happy that they had flush-able toilets.

Yellowstone Lost and Found (Aug 1)

The car windows were dripping with condensation when we woke up. After we got them cleaned off we drove back into Yellowstone and made our first stop Mammoth Springs. We knew that we were pressed for time so we tried to move as quick as we could while still enjoying the views. I don't know if we were walking fast or if it was just a big hike but it felt like the stairs would never end. Every corner we turned there was another flight!

We hopped back into the car to travel to Midway Geyser. Nate specifically wanted to see Grand Prismatic Springs. I was happy to know that there were no stairs at this sight. These geysers and springs were full of vibrant color. Frequently, professional pictures have more extreme colors than you actually get to see, but this was not the case. The colors that I saw in the gift shop were just as vivid as the ones in front of me. It was neat to feel the combination of the hot steam from the geysers and then the cool morning breeze. As we walked along the boardwalk I giggled as I pointed out to Nate two hats that had blown away from their owners were just out of reach from the boardwalk. There are a lot of signs that say that you have to stay on the boardwalk. One of the biggest reasons is so that the microbial life is not disturbed. Any other place they could have taken three steps to pick their hat up and it would have been no big deal. But, in this case their hats were so close yet so far away. However, we did see some bison or elk tracks that obviously did not see the signs. After turning another corner we saw another two hats and a pair of sunglasses. At the end of the loop the total count for the Yellowstone's Lost and Found was 14 hats, a pair of sunglasses, and a pacifier (from Dragon's Mouth the day before).

Old Faithful was our last stop in the park and well worth the wait. She had just gone off when we arrived so we had to wait an hour and a half before she would go again. Old Faithful is the most consistent geyser at Yellowstone and goes off every 90 minutes, plus or minus 10 minutes. The visitors center had a schedule of when the geysers should go off but all the other geysers had a buffer of at least plus or minus 30 minutes from it's scheduled time and some of them were plus or minus 2 hours! We took a spin around the information and learned all about geysers before heading out to join the crowd. There were people everywhere standing and sitting all along the boardwalk surrounding Old Faithful. There was a geyser not too far away that started to go off and caught the attention of an anxious child next to us. He was very insistent with his parents that they were waiting at the wrong geyser and they were supposed to be at the one that was going off. His mother's reply was sarcastic but true, “Right, so whoever built alllll these benches made a mistake and put them at the wrong geyser.” Not too long after that another family had some commotion when a kid lost his tooth! Old Faithful was pretty much right on time and from start to finish she lasted around 5 minutes. And as soon as it was over the 2,000 viewers headed for their cars. Finding our car was a challenge in and of it's self. Even Walmart has their parking lot divided and labeled into sections. Not Yellowstone. Even though their parking lot is probably 3 times larger than most Walmarts. When we parked we had tried to make landmarks of some of the cars around us. But with all of the comings and goings when we were searching most of our landmarks had already left. Making our game of eye spy a little more challenging.

Once we found the car we broke open some Chef Boyardee Mac and Cheese as well as some canned pineapple and waved goodbye to Yellowstone. We stopped for dinner at an A&W and saw a group of elderly ladies playing Montana Rummy which was exciting because we were literally in the state of Montana! We drove through the tip of Idaho before making it to Washington. We stopped at a Walmart and a Panda Express for an evening snack that we ate at our hotel, Mireabeau Park. It was nice to join the rest of the world watching the Olympics, sleeping in a real bed, and having showers two days in a row! The fortune in my fortune cookie is fitting: There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead of you. Woo Hoo!

Yellowstone and many other colors (July 31)

About an hour away from Yellowstone was a town called Cody. We made a stop at their Kmart to stock up on some food for the next few days. We got some Chef Boyardee beef ravioli and mac and cheese, canned fruit, dried fruit, Gatorade, and granola bars. We started our drive through the park and not knowing what Yellowstone actually looks like, I was amazed by the beauty of God's creation. At Yellowstone there were hills and hills dotted in conifers with a frequent stream running by. We stopped after a long night of driving at Fishing Bridge to look at the maps and information the park ranger gave us and decide where we wanted to go first. (I was also very excited to discover that they had showers!)

The first area of interest we saw was the Volcanic Springs. Here were a few hot springs that had a funny caution sign at the beginning of the boardwalk. It said that 12 people had been scalded to death at the springs in Yellowstone and had a picture from the 80's of a little boy jumping into a hot spring, his sister looking shocked on the boardwalk, and their father with his back to them walking away . The Dragon's mouth was my favorite. It was a little cave that had steam roaring out of it and waves lapping onto the edge of the small pool of water. Some poor little child lost their pacifier on a rocks below the boardwalk. There were a few springs that smelled absolutely awful. People were walking around with their shirts over their mouths because the smell of sulfur was so strong! The bison didn't seem to mind though. There was a male lazing around one of the springs that attracted a lot of tourist's attention. He didn't seem to mind that the whole world was watching when he rolled around in the dirt. And literally the whole world was watching. It amazed me how many different languages we heard. Nate and I were able to identify, French, German, Chinese, Spanish, and possibly Turkish. There were just as many internationals as there were natives. It was also a really fun place to look at license plates and many families were taking advantage of the variety and turning it into a game.

We continued our drive with frequent stops at the scenic views. We met all kinds of people, one of the most memorable was a biker named Dave who introduced himself to us in the Hayden Valley. He had just found someone's journal that had a three month log of what they had seen in Yellowstone and was heartbroken that this person would not have their journal. The last entry had today's date on it so we assumed that they left it on top of their car and drove off. He held Nate hostage with conversation for a while and told him all about his life, love life, and even how cute he thought the Chinese girls were “with their little umbrellas” while I ate my breakfast of apple cinnamon rice cakes and chocolate pudding.

The “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone” was Nate's favorite spot in the park. We took two different trails down into the canyon. The first one was a 600 ft. change in elevation about .38 miles long. It was a steep trail but the effort rewarded with a gorgeous view of the canyon. It actually looked more like a painting than real life.   People were walking in all kinds of footwear from flip flops to heels huffing and puffing up the mountainside. When we were on our way back up there was a park ranger coming down with some kind of medical kit. At the top we saw an ambulance, an all-terrain stretcher, and more park rangers so we knew that someone wasn't able to make the hike up. The second trail was even steeper but an overall shorter trek. It was a 500 ft. change in elevation but only .18 miles.

It took so long to get from one point to another and even thought the speed limit could be up to 45 mph you only went about 20 miles in one hour. Not to mention all the traffic. All of the parking lots were jam packed. The different scenic pull offs were extremely busy when there was wildlife on the side of the road. Nate and I drove into a situation where traffic literally stopped for a bison walking across the road, we got some good video of that. But bison traffic was nothing compared to bear traffic! People were crazy trying to pull over to see a bear more than a quarter mile away. They even had someone directing traffic because there was no where to park and people weren't pulling off the road all the way. Not too much farther down the road we saw a park ranger with it's lights on and a bear running in front of him on the pavement and then scamper up onto the hill. People were slowing way down and then we heard the ranger say on his mega phone, “DO NOT STOP, KEEP DRIVING.”

We had a dinner cooked especially for us by Chef Boyardee, served cold out of a can. If anyone is in a dilemma of whether they should have beef ravioli or mac and cheese straight from the can... choose mac and cheese every time. We were hungry enough that the fact that it wasn't heated didn't matter. Tower Fall's general store's cafe provided our forks that proudly stated on the back that they were made from plants. I thought that they had a funky texture but Nate didn't seem to mind. We drove by a petrified tree before making it to Mammoth Hot Springs. There were elk outside the hotel so we joined everyone else by snapping some pictures before heading into the visitors center to get a cancellation for our passport. It was getting close to evening and we heard the park ranger tell someone else that all of the campsites were full. We had planned on heading down to Lewis Lake because that was a campsite that was first come first serve and we figured that being a little farther out of the way with fewer facilities it wouldn't be a problem getting a site. But, out of the 2,165 campsites that they had not one was open. That tells you how many people were visiting the park. We talked to the park ranger to see what the best thing to do was. We didn't mind sleeping in our cars but we could get a ticket if we did it inside the park so he gave us a few suggestions for outside the park. The hotel next door to the visitors center had showers open to the public even if they weren't staying in the hotel so we grabbed our stuff from the car and payed at the front desk and had our fist shower since Cleveland. Almost 4 full days. Taking advantage of the cell service we made a reservation for the following night before heading out of the park to a boat launch site to spend the night. Grabbed our pillows, put our seats back, and slept in the car.

That's it? (July 30)

First night in a tent was a success. We were a little fearful of rain, but woke up to a beautiful crisp morning. About 10 miles away from the west side of the Badlands was a store called Wall Drug. We had seen all kinds of billboards for it and heard from a few people that we needed to stop there. On our way we ran into some more bison that were grazing along the side of the road. We pulled over to take some pictures and video and heard some squeaking (wee wee!) that did not sound like a bison. It turned out to be prairie dogs! They popped out of everywhere running from hole to hole.

Wall Drug reminded me of the Shenandoah Farmers Market. There were all kinds of little shops that had snacks, souvenirs, and other nick-knacks. We stopped in one of the gift shops and got a book to put all of our pressed pennies in. There were a lot of painted manikins that people were getting their pictures taken with, penny presses, and lots of taxidermied animals.  Kids enjoyed running through shooting fountains, pretending to drive a covered wagon, and climbing on top of a giant jackrabbit. Nate and I enjoyed watching a giant animated T-Rex “trying” to eat the on-looking children waiting anxiously for the steam and lights that went off about every 10 minutes. There was also a giant monkey that “played” the piano and sang, as well as a jukebox that had a banjo and 12-string-guitar inside of it and was played with a set of mechanical dampers that changed chords and picks that plucked the strings. We went across the street to a cafe called Cactus Cafe Lounge for a breakfast of a Mexican omelet and blueberry pancakes. Not too far away, Wall Drug owned an 80 foot dinosaur that we took a stop at to get some pictures and later viewed from the highway on our way out of the Badlands. 

Along the way we stopped at the Minuteman Missile Historic Site. We got our cancellation and watched a 10 minute video on how the solid fuel minute man was an improvement over it's predecessors by giving it an almost instant response time (can you tell that Nate wrote that sentence ;)). There were many silos surrounding the interstate during the Cold War.

Our next spontaneous visit was a giant prairie dog statue. There was a little gift shop that you could buy 50 cent bags of unsalted peanuts to feed the prairie dogs. Nate and I bought two. There was a large fenced in field covered in prairie dog holes and even more outside of the fenced in area. Most of the doggies inside the fence were fat and not very interested in food and not as comfortable with people as I expected them to be. You could get a few yards away from them before they darted into their holes. Sometimes they would sit on their hind legs very still and wouldn't even blink when I accidentally hit the with a peanut. It was cute to see them play together and lay out on their bellies as they munch on their peanuts.

When we got back to the Badlands we got out to explore the mountains and hills for a little before traveling to the visitors center to get our passport stamped and to see their fossil exhibit. They told a neat story about how most of their fossils are found by park visitors but they do have a staff that digs for fossils as well. They follow up on every report they get to see if it is something to look into further or not, or something that they want to continue to monitor or even extract. A big rain can erode enough to reveal something that you could not have seen the day before. In fact, after a heavy rain a 7 year old girl found something that she thought was worth reporting. Looking at the picture of what she reported, if I was her mother, I would have told her it was nothing and not worth bothering the staff. How wrong I would have been. It turned out to be the most pristine one out of 3 skulls they have found in the park of a saber; priceless according to the park ranger.

The tires needed to be rotated on the car, so we took a stop to do the car maintenance and figure out what to do next. We wanted to do both Wind Cave and Jewel Cave but didn't have time for both so we settled on Wind Cave. We got their just in time to get two of the last six tickets to catch the last tour at 6 in the evening, get our passport stamped, and buy a patch to add to our collection. We had a great tour guide. He was an excellent story teller and did a good job answering all of the eager kid's questions. He is the only park ranger at Wind Cave that is from Hot Springs, SD and had a great story telling voice, well paced and soothing as Nate describes it. Legend has it a cowboy discovered Wind Cave when his hat was blown off his head from a gust of wind coming from a hole that was just big enough for a skinny person to shimmy down. When the cowboy came back to show of his hat trick instead of being able to catch the hat in his hand, it got sucked back into the cave never to be found again. One kid wanted to know why they didn't send robots down the cave to find the hat. The ranger, taken by surprise by the question replied, “Why would we want to do that when we have stairs?” It got a good laugh from the crowd. The cave is a constant 53 degrees Celsius and filled with all kinds of unique rock structures. They have the largest amount of “box work” that was named because someone thought that it looked like p.o. boxes. There was one point when the ranger turned off all of the lights illuminating the way to show how dark it truly is. He told a story about a 16 year old boy who gave 6 hour tours of the caves. He asked the group how they thought he lite the way. I laughed out loud when he said that it wasn't electricity, it wasn't a lantern, it wasn't a torch, it was a candle in a bucket and a ball of yarn as a back up plan. His candle was made out of animal fat so it burned longer and brighter than our candles today. The ranger asked how many of the 16-year-olds would feel confident leading a tour into the cave with no concrete paths that they have today and just a candle in a bucket lighting the way. My remark to Nate was, “He asked the wrong question, the question should be who in the world would be willing to trust a 16 year- old to give them a tour in a pitch black cave with a bucket candle?” Unfortunately, all pictures of Wind Cave were accidentally deleted by Jess. :( Good thing we have the internet to get pictures from.

 We stopped for dinner at the pokiest DQ I've been to and then went up to Mt. Rushmore. We knew that there was a lighting ceremony that started at 9 but were surprised at the mass of people that were there, probably around 5,000. It was dark when we arrived so we couldn't see the four presidents just yet and they played an audio of information about the presidents. As that was going on we went to the Visitors Center to get our passport stamped, read some info boards, bought our patch, and did a penny press. We came out and found a good viewing spot as they started playing a recording of “God Bless America” and spotlights slowly came on to reveal the sculpture. When they were fully lite the only thing I could think was “That's it?” We both expected the faces to encompass more of the mountainside and be taken back by a majestic view. We actually thought that they looked bigger from farther away when we were leaving. We decided that all of the pictures that we have seen of Mt. Rushmore make it look like it takes up ¾ ths of the mountainside. Nevertheless, carving four faces into a mountain is still very impressive. Mom Swartz told us later that they had intended to have the sculpture reach down to the waist but they ran out of funds. That helped explain our confusion of the size surprise. At that point they called up all of the veterans in the stands and asked them to come down onto the platform and played the national anthem while four people took down the American flag from the flagpole and fold it. That concluded the ceremony and the mass of people began to leave. We are lucky that we were close to the back, walk fast, and were able to get out before the mob made it to their cars. Taking turns driving through the night. Next stop: Yellowstone.

Is This America?

I believe last time I left off we were at Ian's apartment and just met his roommate, Jake. Ian, Nate, and I drove over to Wheaton College which has a beautiful campus. I can see why Ian likes it so much. We saw the outside of the Billy Graham museum, the creative home of Narnia and “the animal” as Ian called it, inside the science building. Thanks Ian for being a part of this memory for us!

It was my turn to drive when we left Ian's and I was very thankful for the "booster seat" the we had rigged up so that I could reach the pedals in Nate's car (a text book with a towel wrapped around it). Regardless of the fact that I don't really fit in the driver's seat of the car, it is very comfortable and despite the long hours in the car I haven't gotten very sore. After driving for a while we pulled over and took a 2 hour nap, before I grabbed some coffee and hit the road again around 4:30 in the morning. I had considered making the nap longer than 2 hours but I'm very glad I didn't because I got the privilege of seeing one of God's hand crafted Wisconsin sunrises. I say privilege because I feel like people generally see more sunsets than sunrises. It was amazing to see it unfold. It started out with some cool pastels greens and purples, and then as the sun came up onto the horizon it turned into a beautiful vibrant pink and orange. The drive was really neat to. I saw crops getting watered, and some really neat stone towers coming out of the fields that were covered in mist. It almost makes me wish that I was more of a morning person... But that thought didn't last long. When the last of the pink clouds whisped away I thought... I could have stopped and taken a picture. Maybe I'll get the hang of this road trip, flexible, no schedule thing yet.

Eventually we rolled into Minnesota which turned out to be less of “The land of ten thousand lakes” and more like “The land of ten thousand windmills.” There also have been fields and fields of sunflowers, which I really enjoyed. Gas Buddy app has been great for finding cheap gas. It shows exactly where the gas station is and how much it is. Nate has had a fun time updating them as we go along too. On our way into Sioux Falls, Dakota we saw a memorial for the U.S.S. South Dakota which was a WWII Battleship. They had different parts of the ship on display and a lot of 8X10's along the wall. Philip's Avenue Diner was a delicious place to stop for burch Nate had a breakfast burrito, I had french toast, and we split a smores milkshake and they even toasted the marshmallows that they put on top. It actually smelled like a campfire! Since we happened to be in Sioux Falls we went to the zoo there and used our zoo pass for the second time. It was a really nice zoo and we enjoyed watching the monkeys getting fed, almost touching a gator, and laughing at the giraffe licking a tree with it's rather lengthy tongue. I also fed the ducks/geese and the goats. The goats were especially entertaining to feed because they would follow you around and the bigger ones would butt the smaller ones out of the way. There was a small grey one that was my favorite because while most of the goats used their lips to eat the food he used his tongue to lap it up. We got lots of video of that.

Again, even though it might be a little boring driving for hours on end, number one the scenery is a lot different than Binghamton's and number two we get to drive so fast! The speed limit is around 70-75 most of the way. We arrived at the Badlands around 6. I was totally taken by surprise. I hadn't looked at any pictures of where we were going so I didn't know what to expect. But all of the gray and red stripped rocks were amazing. I got out of the car and asked Nate, “Is this America?” As we were driving through I kept telling Nate that I wanted to see bison! Wild bison! Twice we saw herds of black dots around the bend. Only to discover when we got closer that they were cows. Talk about a let down! However, we did see some long horned goats, two frolicking dear, some more dear with antlers. The drive to the campsite seemed to take forever and it was an unpaved road with all kinds of twist and turns. For a while we drove behind a yellow volkswagen bus that had "Shaggin' Wagon" written on the back of it. I had also seen it on the highway so it was funny to see it again in the park. It was getting dark when we rounded a corner and there they were... my bison! Sauntering across the road, munching on their grass, but definitely not a fan of cars. It was neat to see the calves running around, one was even nursing some food from mom. Nate couldn't resist getting out of the car and trying to touch one, but they all ran away from him. But our bison viewing wasn't over, just around the next corner was another herd of bison. This time we had one younger guy just stand in the middle of the road. Nate said, “nothing like a bison in headlights!” haha. Finally, we got the campsite and set up our tent. We'll have an early morning exploring the Badlands!