Old Faithful Heats Up

Cooke City, MT

This little village intrigued me. We spent three nights here and were able to talk to the hotel owners on several occasions. They just purchased the hotel in May and are from...you guessed it! WV!!! They have been going to the area for about ten years to camp, and when the plant they worked for in WV closed down, and the hotel was for sale, they took it as a sign to move. They seem to be very happy, but my mother-in-law doesn't think they are as happy as they think. She wouldn't be anyway. There are about 90 people in the town. If you don't have a job there, you don't live there. There isn't any reason for you to be there otherwise. The closest towns are hours away. The red building is the grocery store, a national historic landmark. It has been there over 100 years. We went in and Oreos were $5.25! You could get basics like milk and butter, but there wasn't much else. If you need to go to the store you buy in bulk and plan it well. The top picture is our hotel. There are several in the town. This one has 6 rooms. They stay open year-round so that people who like snow sports can come up too. I am unsure of how they do that, but they do. There is a post office in town, and again that raises questions for winter delivery. There were a few restaurants, but they are only open in the summer. There is no law, no medical help, not much of anything. There is, however, a school. It is a one room school house, and keeping with local rules, it is built of logs. The teacher is paid as well as having her housing provided. She will have 4 students this year; 2 Kindergarteners and a 3rd and a 4th grader. They have a school bus; it is a yellow SUV. I told the boys it is like home schooling! The teacher retires next year, and I think I would like to try teaching there for a year, just for the experience. But since my boys about passed out from lack of seeing their friends for two weeks, I guess that adventure will have to wait for a while.

Mother Nature

One of the interesting parts of the wildfire was that it was necessary. The lodge pole pine has a cone that will only open when heated by fire. In order for the seeds to leave the cone and begin new trees, there must be a fire. For many years the park had tried to avoid fires, but then realized that fire is a natural part of the environment. So when fires occur naturally from lightning, the park service lets them burn within safe parameters. The 1988 fire was one of the first fires after this decision, and it also occured after several years of drought. Therefore, the park service came under a lot of "fire" about it, but it now looks like they were correct.

You can still see burned trunks of lodge pole pine standing above the new growth. It looked like telephone poles sticking up through a new forest.

Beautiful Geysers

The lower left picture in this collage shows how the area got its name. We went to the falls on the first full day in Yellowstone. The cliffs around the falls are this yellow stone. You are very high up when you take these pictures. By the end of our time there I had nosebleeds. The other pictures are of the geyser basin. Some of the land is terraced with mineral deposits, like the top right. In other places you see steam coming up from the ground near the edge of trees and grass. If I had been an indian, I would have spent my winters there. You would have to get used to the smell though. Sulfur. Click on the buffalo sign and read. Notice the word "GORED". We read the sign after we had walked the boardwalk trail. There was a buffalo on the side of the boardwalk just lying there for a little rest. Mother-in-Law even took pictures up close of it. Nice.

Yellowstone Wildlife

Of course one of the main reasons you go to Yellowstone is so that you can see lots of wildlife up close. We were not disappointed. You can see in the collage that vehicles get stopped as buffalo decide to cross the road. They sometimes just stand in the road and look at you. Their heads weigh about 200 pounds, and the looks they give will make you happy to just sit and wait! We saw two bears while we were there. We weren't able to get a picture of the first one since the motorcycle going by scared it off. The one in this picture was seen on our last day there. Both times they were grizzlies. We didn't see any black bears. We have an unverified sighting of a moose, but no one but me saw it, so they say it doesn't count. If Hubby didn't drive so fast maybe someone else would have! Anyway, it was eating bark in the trees as we drove by. By the time we got turned around to try and find it, it was gone. The only other moose we saw were females in the Grand Tetons. All of these pictures were taken from the van, either by opening the door or rolling down the window. You can see part of the van window in the picture with the elk's head down. That's how close we were. We had watched a movie prior to that about being safe in the park, and it showed elk attacking cars for no apparent reason. I was praying hard as this one passed by! The other pictures are a buffalo and calf, pronghorn, and bighorn sheep. We also saw a coyote pass by like a dog on a walk across the street, but we weren't fast enough to get a picture. We saw a pack of wolves the first night as well, but they were too far away to photograph. Lots of people go out int he evening and park their cars along the side of the road. They take their camping chairs and sit out with a thermos of coffee and watch the wildlife. We never did that, but if we had had more time we might have. Something for the next trip I guess.

Mountain Top Wildlife

As we drove to Cooke City, we travelled on the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway. It is the main road from Cody to Cooke City. Cody is the closest town of any size. It took about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to get there. If you want a WalMart or a pharmacy you have to drive to Cody. However, in October they will close that road and it won't open until May! The life there was very hard for me to imagine. But at the top of one of the mountains, we pulled over to take in the scenery and saw these little guys all over the place. It was amazing to us that anything was there. You see there isn't much to eat. (Although Father-in-Law was happy to give some cracker crumbs.) They came up so close to us that they were climbing over the boys' feet! It was here that we started to feel the change in climate. It was July 29th and in mid-afternoon it was about 60 degrees with a cold wind. Our 100 degree weather this week is making me think we went at the wrong time.

Fire

This is the park where it was burned in 1988, which actually is most of the park. You can see some of the new growth that has started to take place. For the most part it is recovering well. The moose moved down to the Grand Tetons so that they could follow their food, but otherwise the wildlife was unaffected.

Driving

This is the drive from Cody, Wyoming to Cooke City, Montana. The red cliffs are where we started seeing mountains. Before that we were mostly seeing flat prairie or some grassy hills. Hubby especially liked the peaked mountain. If you click on it you will see snow at the top.People have been asking me my favorite part of the trip, and believe it or not I think the drive was the best part. I enjoyed seeing how the country changed and how each section was different from another.

Yellowstone Day Three, Geysers

The last full day of Yellowstone we spent going through the Norris Geyser Basin. It took a little over two hours to get there from our hotel. We were driving through beautiful wooded mountains, when suddenly through the treetops, we could see steam. It looked like smoke from a fire. I thought that if I were a settler coming through, I would have thought there was someone nearby and would have looked for them. What I would have found would have startled me to no end. When we got out of the car and walked down to the first area of geysers, it was like walking onto another planet. Steam was rising from different spots all over the place. Even through the boardwalk that we were using! I put my hand to the steam and it was warm. I later did a no-no and put my hand on the earth to see if it was warm, but it wasn't. You are not to get off of the boardwalks because the ground is so thin here it could break and leave you badly burned.

The picture below is of a mud pot. These are places where the water has mostly dried up, so instead of steam you get bubbling mud. One of the early explorers called it Hell bubbling up through, and I can well imagine that I would have thought the same thing.

#2 stood in the wind at one of the geysers so that the steam would blow over him. By the time it does that it isn't hot anymore. At one of the geysers, the steam rose about 30 feet above us, and then because of the cool air, it condensed on us as rain when we walked under it on the boardwalk. The pools come in brilliant colors because of the bacteria living in them. The brighter blue the color the hotter the water. Depending on the color of the bacteria you can tell how hot the geyser is.

We ended the geyser watching by seeing Old Faithful do her thing. It is impressive, but I think I liked walking through all of the geyser basin better. After that we went to Grant Village area to learn about the wildfires of 1988. #2 did a presentation for 4-H on wildfires, so I thought it would especially be good for him to see this. I will post pix tomorrow of what we learned there. perhaps I will also get the wildlife pix up too. I tried getting the video on the computer and didn't have any luck. I'll keep trying.

Yellowstone, Day Two

The next day we headed to the Mammoth Hot Springs Area. That was about two hours away. I told you you don't go anywhere quickly in Yellowstone. Anyway, we saw steaming areas of land with water running through. These were geysers that weren't shooting to the sky, but just steaming like a simmering pot of soup. It was threatening rain, and soon started sprinkling. I wasn't about to let that ruin my siteseeing however. I drove a long way to see this, and see it I would! #1 had said that the one thing he wanted to do was to ride a horse. We had tried to schedule that for the first day, but there weren't any spots available. So we said that would be something to look forward to for the next day. Then of course it rained. But once again, God shone his face on our trip! The rain stopped. Not only did the rain stop, but #1 was to have a private horse ride. No one else had signed up. Deciding to make myself "Mother of the Decade" I asked the registrar if I could have a favor. You have to be 12 to ride the horses without a parent, but since there wasn't anyone else going, could my ten year old ride along and I would walk beside them for the "adult chaperone" that was needed. Now it wasn't that I was just dying to walk along, but I knew that #2 was disappointed to not get to ride, though he had chosen to fish as his one thing. I didn't think I could ride the horse for an hour given the condition of my back, and so I asked if I could walk along. (Not to mention that I didn't want to pay for me to ride!) They agreed to allow this, and I sat in on the safety talk before the ride. After the boys were saddled up, I started to walk along. The manager told me if I didn't want to walk along it would be ok, and I said I thought they would be fine. So #1 got his wish to ride a horse, and #2 got to join him. The guide told us at the end that that is something only about 2 percent of the people do...get off the main highway and go into the back country. So the boys had a great time. Having heard that about the tourists, I decided we needed to get off the main roadway. So we took a couple of different backroads and explored a bit. It is was beautiful countryside with lots of wild flowers, grasses, and gorgeous mountain scenery. We stopped to see a petrified tree too. It is fenced off so people will leave it alone, I suppose. It is a redwood tree, which shows that this was once a temperate rainforest area. Then came the volcano explosion that petrified it. I guess it would pertify me too if the earth suddenly threw up a bunch of fire and rock.

Yellowstone, Day One Part Two

The first day that we got to Yellowstone, we quickly went to Roosevelt Lodge to see if we could get tickets to the Cowboy Cookout. I had tried to call several times to get reservations, but had been unable to do so. When I asked at the front desk, they told me that people book those trips up to a year in advance. However, if I wanted to try hanging around the next evening and see if there were any cancellations, I might get lucky. When I asked what each person would like to do at Yellowstone, Mother-in-Law said she had really been looking forward to the Cowboy Cookout. So after fishing and travelling through the Canyon Area, we made it to Roosevelt to see about cancellations. As it happened, there were four cancellations. We rushed over to the corral to see if there might be two more. We waited apprehensively, but finally there were two more. And bless us all, the other two were on our wagon! So all six of us were able to ride covered wagon #9 to the Cowboy Cookout. Hubby and I and the boys rode in the front seat with the driver. The boys enjoyed it, but it was very dusty for my tastes. The horses were named Oscar and Felix, and Felix was feeling gassy. I think that is what the boys enjoyed the most! The ride is about 2-3 miles, and then you arrive at a "campsite" for dinner. There was steak, potato salad, cole slaw, cornbread, beans, apple crisp, watermelon, drinks, and cowboy coffee. #2 wanted to try cowboy coffee. You can see his reaction in the picture above! M-I-L poured hers out and it was as black and thick as chocolate pudding. The scenery was beautiful. The weather great. There was a cowboy entertainer from Texas. He sang and played the guitar through dinner. After dinner we rode back on the covered wagons. Two mule deer jumped out in front of our horses and they took off running for a few seconds. That was exciting. It was a great end to a wonderful first day. We are back home now. We got in late last night. I checked all of the livestock and plants this morning. Kelly has had a bath and she is happily back in the house. It is wonderful to be home.

Yellowstone, Day One

We did manage to go into Yellowstone on Wednesday, but it was only for a little over an hour. We drove to the section called Roosevelt and tried to get tickets to the Cowboy Cookout for Thursday or Friday. Failure. Driving back "home" to Cooke City, we were stopped by buffalo. Many times. We were staying just outside of the Lamar Valley, which is where you see most of the wildlife in Yellowstone. That evening we saw buffalo and wolves. The wolves, or coyotes we aren't sure, were far enough away to just know that we had seen them. That area is a den area for wolves, so we are saying it was wolves. The picture above is a common sight in the park. The fire of 1988 fairly destroyed the park. 21 years later, it is still coming back to life. The last day we spent a lot of time learning about the fire, so I will save that info. The picture below is #2's fishing trip. I asked each person if they could only do one thing in YNP, what would it be. #2 said he would want to go fishing. So we rented a pole and he fished in Yellowstone Lake. Well he attempted it for about 20 minutes. Upon catching absolutely nothing in that time, he decided he would rather whittle and throw rocks. We had a nice picnic lunch though. It was a cold day, so we tried to stay in the sun. The beach was warm because it is black sand from the obsidian that the underground volcano has made.

He did get his feet wet, and said it was cold enough to be numbing. He enjoyed whittling with his new knife from Wall Drug.

This is the scene of Yellowstone Lake. It is surrounded by the Rockie Mountains. I walked around the shore where we were, and it is beautiful. A couple was fly fishing around the bend. A few boats sped by. Dragonfly-like insects buzzed incessantly. Mostly it was quiet and calm.

After the fishing trip, we drove through the Canyon Area. That is where the waterfalls are. There are also white water rapids with surprises like this pelican. In the shallows we saw lots of cut-throat trout (too bad for #2 you couldn't fish in that area), and on the rocks were this pelican and another. The whole park is full of surprises.

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That was only half of our day. I will finish it tomorrow. We are in Kentucky now and hope to make it home tomorrow. We will be making one more stop on the trip. Believe it or not we will be stopping in WV. There is a place called Tamarack that we have never been to. It is a place that shows Appalachian crafts.

HOWDEE!!!

Greetings from Cody, Wyoming! It took all day to travel from Mount Rushmore to Cody. We got into Cody in the evening and checked into our second camp site. Here we each had a cabin and the boys and I also had a teepee. I needed to do laundry, and Hubby was definitely full swing into the cold, so we asked the inlaws to take the boys to the rodeo. They were happy to oblige and had a great time. The clown was evidently a hit as I have been hearing jokes ever since. There was a female rider that night for the first time, and she fell so hard she said she couldn't remember the ride. By the time the boys got back from the rodeo, it was very cold and windy. They told me they wanted to sleep in the cabin, and I didn't argue one minute. It was obvious that we had changed weather/climate zones on the drive to Cody. It rained and blew all night long. We didn't have a lot of rain the next day, but it was definitely colder. We spent the day at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. There are five sections to the museum. It is actually five museums in one. First we went to the weapons museum and saw a LOT of guns. There were ones there from the 1600s! The wide ended ones that make you think of Pilgrims were made that way so you could load it on an undulating ship or galloping horse. I actually learned quite a bit.

I managed to bag this moose while we were there. #2 took the shot of these other animals. We discovered that Teddy Roosevelt was instrumental in the conservation of animals and started a group to stop the endless hunting of certain species. He was a founder of one of the first hunting conservation groups.

The second museum was about Western Art and was very interesting. It showed how statues are put together, different mediums, historical art, and a replica of Remington's studio. It was probably the best art museum I have ever been to.

The third museum is about the Native Americans. #1 wanted to go there so badly that I just sent him along before the rest of us. By the time I got there he was only halfway done and we finished about the same time. He has loved indians for many years. My favorite sight here was seeing the tools that indians made with what they had. The ladle from a buffalo horn was stunning and so very practical.

The next museum was about Buffalo Bill and his Wild West act. There was a lot of personal history here. The exhibit I found stunning was this carriage robe from a Russian Czar. Buffalo Bill also gave "tours" of the Yellowstone area, and he gave a tour to a Russian Czar. In appreciation he was given this robe made of animal furs. It looks like a quilt that we would make in our country, but it is all fur. I stood in amazement for many minutes. Click on the picture to see it in more detail.

The fifth museum was about the natural history and environment of the area. By then I was so exhausted I didn't do it justice. There was a section on Lewis and Clark's Expedition, oil and it's controversies, stuffed wildlife and their habitats, and a neat section on wolves. I had to leave before I could finish it all.

Then we drove to Cooke City, Montana. I can't tell you how beautiful and astonishing that drive was. We used the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, and My, Oh, My! My pictures of it are on the video camera, so I can't show them yet, but WOW! The mountains are the biggest I have ever driven, and very, very beautiful. We stopped at the top of one to look out, and tiny gophers were climbing all over the hillside. The sun was shining, but it was probably 60 degrees with a cold wind. We first saw snow here. We also saw pronghorns, and cattle loose on the road. There are signs saying, "Open Range, Loose Stock."

We were very tired, but exhilirated by it all. We managed to head into Yellowstone for a quick look around before turning in for the night. I will cover that day by day.

Today we managed to get through Hannibal, Missouri, and are spending the night here. Tomorrow is St. Louis. Good Night.

Mount Rushmore

The kids and I walked on the dunes at the BadLands. My understanding was that we were going to the top of the hill and then coming down the same way. #2 had different ideas. We went up the narrow incline and then started heading over the edge. We scooted down the other side, and I managed to not fall on my bahookie. I was quite proud! The BadLands have a beauty, that is for sure, but it isn't the sustaining type that I desire. In other words, I wouldn't want to live there.

We camped out at a KOA outside of Mount Rushmore that night. My dear in-laws were good sports about it. Here M-I-L is "washing the dishes". It rained part of the time we were there, and evidently quite heavily before we got there. There were a lot of puddles to work around. The KOA had a lot of activities. It was a sort of resort. The boys enjoyed the water slide. They made friends with some other kids and slid down time and again. It was quite chilly, but that didn't stop them from having fun. They were able to play for an hour or so before we headed to Rushmore for the evening show.

We went to Mount Rushmore in the evening. There is a special lighting ceremony in the evening. We got there early enough to visit the exhibits and to walk around the base of the monument. Here we are looking up through a crevice to see the profile of George Washington. It is a most stunning thing to see. His eyes are 11 feet tall. I think the nose is 18 feet.

When you enter the monument arena you first walk through a tunnel of state flags. There is an amphitheater to sit in and wait for the ceremony. But the most impressive sight is the monument itself. I took video of the evening ceremony. Perhaps I will get time in a few weeks to publish that here. It was a beautiful ceremony. There was a movie about the four presidents that are portrayed in the sculpture, and then a Boy Scout troop lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. All of the veterans and current military were invited to come up on stage. Then another Boy Scout troop took down the flag and folded it. Each military personnel was invited to give their name and the branch of the military in which they served. There were a lot of people that had served, but each one was given the opportunity to speak. It was beautiful. Then the sculpture was lit up and everyone was free to go.

I spoke with a friend today and she told me that my readers are sad that I haven't been more faithful in my blogging. Let me just say, "I am POOPED!" We have a couple of days left, and then we head home. Today we made it most the way through Nebraska. Tomorrow we see the Hannibal, MO area. We have been listening to Tom Sawyer in the van to prepare for our time with Mark Twain. The night may be late, so don't expect more posts for a while. Sorry.

Wall Drug

Where and What is Wall Drug!? As soon as you enter South Dakota, you start to see signs for Wall Drug. Things like Kids Love Wall Drug. Coffee 5 cents Wall Drug. Wall Drug Sign in Kenya Africa...on and on it goes. Wall Drug is an emporium of everything weird and touristy. We had a ball there! There are rooms for souvenirs, rock hounds, gun enthusiasts, campers, you name it. Then the halls are filled with Old West Memorabilia. It is quite a sight. After Wall Drug we headed to the Badlands. The area is devoid of life, thus the title BadLands. We were able to climb on the hills and made lots of scenic stops along the way for photo ops.

Hubby was unsure about his seat mate at Wall Drug. I kissed a buffalo, and the kids and F-I-L enjoyed the jackalopes.