Barn Sour

We woke up on the western edge of Minnesota, but the boys were determined to make it to Chicago TONIGHT! So, today was just "go, go, go"!

Before leaving Pipestone, we headed back to the monument visitor center so that the boys could get their Jr. Ranger badges (and I could get my picture of the sign!)

As for the Rest of South Dakota...

We spent the night at the Sunshine Inn, a small motel in Wall, SD. Normally I'd pick a chain place, but this one was half the rate and even still, had excellent reviews on TripAdvisor. I'd definitely agree with the other reviewers - the room was clean, the couple who own the motel were nice and gladly filled up our ice chest, and it was only a block away from Wall Drug! I'm also going to take some space here to give the TripAdvisor website two big thumbs up! It has been invaluable in choosing places to stay, as well as finding things to do -- not only for this trip, but also for others that we've taken. The forums are also a great place to get advice from local experts.

All done with the public service announcements, now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Black Hills in a Day

I knew when I started planning this trip that we were not going to have time to see everything. The hardest part was deciding what things were going to make the cut. There is so much to do in the Black Hills area of South Dakota -- we would need at least a couple more days to cover what we missed. Hopefully we'll make it back someday...

Hey, Isn't This the Place...

So, today was the big pay-off for having the boys watch all of those movies (see my first-ever post). After breakfast at the "best hotel ever" (waffles & hot chocolate as usual for son #2), it took us about an hour to get to Devils Tower...

"Mom, isn't this where all of the dead cows and sheep are supposed to be?"

Go East, Young Man!

We had a lot of ground to cover today, so we loaded up and got ready to head out of the park after having breakfast at the diner. Our traveling buddies and her brother (our DC host last fall flew out for a few days to visit Yellowstone as well) were going to hike to the brink of the falls, before heading off on their own separate ways. We took the easier way and drove back to Artist Point to view the Lower Falls with the morning sun behind us.

Tatanka

We've seen a *LOT* of bison so far, but I'll never get tired of taking pics of them. Of all the wildlife, they're probably my favorite (even though the bears and wolves are rarer to spot = a more prized photo).

Saturday in the Park

Do you think the stagecoaches have been upgraded since 1978?

Originally we had reservations for a stagecoach tour out of Roosevelt Lodge today, but when we checked in on Wednesday, we found out that the activity had been cancelled due to poor trail conditions from all of the recent rain and melting snow. Bummer!

Hunting for Animals

This morning we got up early to do the hike out to Mystic Falls, which starts out in Biscuit Basin.

Sapphire Pool

Little Firehole River

Mystic Falls



Hot Stuff

I wasn’t with the boys yesterday the two times that they saw Old Faithful go off, so I was determined to catch it this morning. True to its name, within five minutes of the predicted time…

Thar' she blows!

Goodbye, Tetons! Hello, Yellowstone!

Both R and I woke up early this morning – he went to Oxbow Bend to catch the sunrise hitting the Tetons…


…and I went to the main lounge area of the lodge to use their wi-fi to upload pics and update the blog. Clearly, only one of us had any measure of success. For some reason, I couldn’t insert pictures into the body of the text, and it was taking forever to upload photos to Picasa. So frustrating!

Water, Rocks, & Snow

The nice thing about booking the early raft trip was that we still had nearly a whole day to continue exploring. So, we packed lunches and headed to String Lake for a picnic.

"Wild & Scenic" Raft Trip

I’m so thankful that we had another day of gorgeous weather – especially today, since we had reserved a float trip down the Snake River quite far in advance. I booked the 6:45AM trip for the views of the mountains in the early morning light and with the hope of glimpsing some wildlife along the river. All 4 kids were troopers about getting up so early, and were even quite chatty. Luckily the couple who had to share a raft with our two families didn’t seem to mind.

Les Trois Tetons

We had a beautiful morning driving up through Logan Canyon. The Logan River was running pretty fast – I think it was near flood stage, but I'm not sure if it has crested yet or not. When we came over the summit, we stopped at a rest area with a scenic overlook of Bear Lake.

Bear Lake

Rain, Railroads, & Relatives

After having breakfast at the hotel (any place that has a "make your own waffle" station gets a big thumbs up from the boys), we spent most of the morning driving north on I-15 in the rain. My husband's sense of humor was evident from the playlist he queued up on the iPhone:

• Have You Ever Seen the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Can You Stand the Rain - New Edition
• Who'll Stop the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Over Me - Whiteheart
• Let It Rain - Newsboys

Random Awesomeness

Ever seen the world's largest ball of twine? Or visited the Mystery Spot, where the rules of physics are turned upside down? Carhenge? Roadside America catalogs all of this random awesomeness that is just waiting to be seen! 

They even have an app for that, which I happily and unashamedly paid money to download. Based on your location, it will give you a list of nearby attractions and oddities. How great is that?! That's how we found out about Beaver's native son, Philo T. Farnsworth, the father of television. Can't wait to see what else we will run across on this trip!

Are We There Yet?

And away we go...

Not much to report for our first day on the road. We got off to a later start than I had hoped, but we needed to figure out how to fit all of our clothes, snacks, and the "just in case we might need this" stuff into the back of our minivan. I'm not sure why we (i.e. my dear husband) brought so much food along with us -- after all, people do live in the places we're going to and they have to buy their food from somewhere, right?!

Traveling Buddies

Many of our adventures have been shared with another family. We first met 6 years ago when our older boys were just in kindergarten and they were placed on the same U6 soccer team. We came to find out that our families had many things in common, including enjoying visiting our national parks. The kids earned their first Jr. Ranger badges together at the Santa Monica Mountains NRA and have been hooked ever since. The moms love getting their passport stamps. And the dads... well, they're great about humoring the rest of us in our obsessions!

I calculated how far we've traveled in our trips together and the number I came up with was....

Alphabet Soup

In case anyone is curious, the designations for the 394 units within the national park system are listed below. National parks can only be established by an act of Congress. However, the president may designate and protect areas as national monuments by executive order under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

The Objects of Our Affection

As you can see from the sidebar and my blog moniker, I'm a *big* fan of our national park system -- the spectacular scenery, the wildlife, the historical significance. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend Ken Burns' excellent documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" for an in-depth look at the history of the national parks and the stories of the people involved, not to mention the gorgeous images of the parks themselves.

In the documentary, they describe how, early on, park visitors would receive a stamp showing that their entry fee had been paid. People starting collecting the cancellations as a means to show which parks they had visited and when. The "Passport to Your National Parks" program has been around since 1986, but I caught the bug in 2005 when we took our first real road trip to Seattle and back. Our family tradition began when we bought our first passport at Crater Lake NP in Oregon, stamping it there and at Lava Beds NM in Northern CA, too.